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Home of the Brave

Home of the Brave was a groundbreaking 1949 American film examining the problem of racism from the point of view of an African American soldier serving in the Pacific theater. The film was directed by Mark Robson, written by Carl Foreman (from a play by Arthur Laurents), produced by Stanley Kramer and Robert Stillman, and starred James Edwards, Jeff Corey, Lloyd Bridges, Douglas Dick, Frank Lovejoy, Steve Brodie, and Cliff Clark. Home of the Brave was both a critical and commercial success. The National Board of Review chose it as one of the best 10 films of 1949, and Foreman's screenplay was nominated for the Robert Meltzer Award given by the Writers Guild of America.

The Origins of the Screenplay

The screenplay for Home of the Brave is based on a play of the same named written by Arthur Laurents, which was performed on Broadway from December 27, 1945, to February 23, 1946. The play is set in 1944 in a military hospital in the South Pacific, a setting that allowed the playwright to plausibly bring the diverse characters in the cast into a single confined location where they are forced to interact with each other. Although not a popular success, running for only 69 performances, the play was critically acclaimed. As of 2012, it has not been revived on Broadway, although a television version was broadcast in 1957 in the second season of the series ITV Play of the Week.

Producer Stanley Kramer acquired the rights to the source material for Home of the Brave for $35,000. The primary difference between the play and the film is that in the play the central character is Jewish—Private Peter Coen, known as “Coney”—while in the film, this character becomes Private Peter Moss, an African American. Interestingly, Laurents originally planned to make the central character in Home of the Brave African American rather than Jewish but discarded this idea because he felt it would be too controversial for an American theater audience in 1945. Despite the fact that it would have been extremely unlikely for white and African American soldiers to serve side by side in a combat unit (the U.S. Armed Forces were segregated until 1948), Kramer made this change because several films dealing with anti-Semitism had already been produced, including the 1947 hit Gentleman's Agreement. Kramer also noted the advantage, for a film, in the obvious visual difference between an African American soldier and the white soldiers around him.

Controversy During Production

However, the idea of producing a film directly attacking racism, particularly racism in the military, and with an African American central character who was the equal of the white characters in the film, was extremely controversial. The production was shrouded in secrecy because Kramer feared that segregationist pressure groups might try to disrupt production of the film. Home of the Brave was produced under the dummy title High Noon; no visitors were allowed on the set; all crewmembers swore an oath not to discuss the film; and the actors, screenwriter, and Kramer himself all ate lunch privately and entered and left the studio by a rear gate to avoid attracting press attention.

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