New DVD: 1961 Film Featuring Bermuda Actor
A 50-year-old British movie featuring Bermudian actor Earl Cameron is scheduled to be released on DVD next month.
Oklahoma-based VCI Entertainment will be releasing the DVD of “Flame In The Streets” on September 20, 2011.
The 1961 film takes a look at the racial prejudice in the era, something which Mr Cameron faced off screen during his career.
Born in Bermuda in 1917, Mr Cameron moved to London and started appearing in theatre productions in the 1940s – starting a career that has spanned almost 70 years.
The DVD promo text says, “A grittier, British inspiration to Stanley Kramer’s Oscar winning Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner. Set amidst the backdrop of working class London, Flame in the Streets takes a hard look at racial prejudice.”
“Ted Willis adapted his own successful stage play, Hot Summer Night, for the big-screen and director Roy Baker (A Night to Remember) pulled no punches and bruised many a liberal’s sensibilities in delivering what he termed a harsh picture.”
“John Mills plays a liberal-minded union leader in a London factory, who fights against the discrimination that is rampant in his multiracial workforce.”
“His actions prevent a bitter strike, when the union becomes outraged over the promotion of a Jamaican to a much higher position in the factory.”
“His victory is sweet but short, as he now turns his attention to home where he must fight his own deeper prejudices, when he finds his daughter is planning to marry a Jamaican teacher.”
A pioneering actor who shattered racial barriers in British film and TV in the 1950s, Earl Cameron has appeared in numeorus movies, and continues to work decades later and has appeared in Hollywood blockbusters such as “The Interpreter” (2005 ) and ”Inception” (2010).
Arguably the most successful actor Bermuda has ever produced, Mr Cameron appeared with Sean Connery in “Thunderball” (1965) playing Pinder, the British secret service’s Head of Station in the Bahamas –and technically James Bond’s boss during his mission there in the film.
At 94-years-old, Mr Cameron continues to work, telling the UK media last year that: “Films often needs someone to play the part of a very old man and it makes sense to get an actor who is still alive and kicking – like me – instead of using make-up.”
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