Tamango is a 1958 film

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

 directed by John Berry

John Berry (film director)

John Berry was an American film director, who went into self-exile in France when his career was interrupted by the Hollywood blacklist.-Early Life:...

, a black-listed American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 director who exiled himself to Europe. Dorothy Dandridge

Dorothy Dandridge

Dorothy Jean Dandridge was an American actress and popular singer, and was the first African-American to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress...

 and Curd Jürgens

Curd Jürgens

Curd Gustav Andreas Gottlieb Franz Jürgens was a German-Austrian stage and film actor. He was usually billed in English-speaking films as Curt Jurgens.-Early life:...

 (billed as: Curt Jurgens) star in the film with co-stars Alex Cressan and Jean Servais.
Based on the short story by Prosper Mérimée

Prosper Mérimée

Prosper Mérimée was a French dramatist, historian, archaeologist, and short story writer. He is perhaps best known for his novella Carmen, which became the basis of Bizet's opera Carmen.-Life:...

 first published in 1829, the film is about a slave ship on its crossing from Africa to Cuba, the various people it carries and the slaves' rebellion while onboard.

Plot

Captain Reiker (Curd Jürgens), a Dutch sea captain, sets off on what he intends to be his last slave-ship voyage. After capturing slaves with the complicity of an African chief (Habib Benglia), he then starts his voyage for Cuba. Along with the slaves below-deck, the passengers include his mistress, the slave Aiché (Dorothy Dandridge), and the ship's doctor, Doctor Corot (Jean Servais). Tamango (Alex Cressan), one of the captured men, plans a revolt and tries to persuade Aiché to join him and the other slaves. When the captured slaves do rebel, Tamango manages to hold Aiché hostage. A deadlock between the two sides then develops and Captain Renker states he will fire a cannon into the ships' hold and kill all the slaves unless they give up. Aiché is given a chance to leave by Tamango but after looking up the ladder that leads out of the hold (and towards life), chooses to stay with her fellow slaves. The captain makes good on his threat and shoots the cannon into the hold, literally silencing the slaves' songs.

Controversies

The film's director, John Berry (who had worked with Orson Welles during the 1940s), had been caught up in the Communist scare of the early 1950s, fleeing the United States to avoid being called before the House Un-American Activities Committee. In 1950 he directed the documentary The Hollywood Ten

The Hollywood Ten

The Hollywood Ten is an American 16mm short documentary film. In the film, each member of the Hollywood Ten made a short speech denouncing McCarthyism and the Hollywood Blacklisting.The film was directed by John Berry...

, about the Hollywood professionals who had refused to cooperate with HUAC in 1947 and this movie is what got him in trouble with Congress when one of its subjects, Edward Dmytryk, then decided to testify in 1951.

In a strange twist of fate, Edward Dmytryk

Edward Dmytryk

Edward Dmytryk was an American film director who was amongst the Hollywood Ten, a group of blacklisted film industry professionals who served time in prison for being in contempt of Congress during the McCarthy-era 'red scare'.-Early life:Dmytryk was born in Grand Forks, British Columbia, Canada,...

 (the man who had actually gotten Berry the documentary job) was also the agent of his blacklisting. In his first appearance before HUAC, Dmytryk hadn't testified and was imprisoned for a year for contempt of Congress. Upon his release, he worked in Europe for a few years and, returning to America in 1951, went before the Committee and named names, including John Berry.

The film was controversial in different parts of the world. Even though the project was filmed in the French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 city Nice, France banned Tamango in its West African colonies "for fear it would cause dissent among the natives". The film was released in 1959 in New York City, but didn't receive nationwide distribution until 1962. The United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 government had banned Tamango because it broke the race-mixing (or "miscegnation") section of the Hays Code with the interracial love scenes between Dorothy Dandridge and Curt Jürgens.

Cast

Dorothy Dandridge

Dorothy Dandridge

Dorothy Jean Dandridge was an American actress and popular singer, and was the first African-American to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress...

 as Aiché, Reiker's mistress

Curd Jürgens

Curd Jürgens

Curd Gustav Andreas Gottlieb Franz Jürgens was a German-Austrian stage and film actor. He was usually billed in English-speaking films as Curt Jurgens.-Early life:...

 as Captain John Reiker

Jean Servais as Doctor Corot

Alex Cressan as Tamango

Roger Hanin

Roger Hanin

Roger Hanin is a French actor , best known for playing the title role in the 1989-2006 TV crime series, Navarro.-Personal life:...

 as 1st Mate Bebe

Guy Mairesse

Guy Mairesse

Guy Mairesse was a racing driver from France. He participated in 3 Formula One World Championship Grands Prix, debuting on September 3, 1950...

as Werner

Clément Harari as Cook

Doudou Babet as Chadi

Habib Benglia as Le chef noir