Watch A Raisin in the Sun For Free

A lot of fun.

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

I watched this today, and was so impressed I had to share my thoughts on it. Firstly, I love Poitier, and own many of his films from his incredible run of the 60's. He may have won the Oscar for Lilies of the Field, but I always thought he was better in quite a few other movies, and now this one joins them. In fact, I think in this film he was much, much better. And it's also interesting in that Walter Lee is a flawed character, in some ways. In some other movies Poitier's almost too perfect. The supporting cast are incredible too. Claudia McNeil should have at least received a nomination for best supporting actress, And Ruby Dee... I can't get over how young and pretty she is, having only ever seen her playing mothers and grandmas up to now. Watching this, I kept thinking of another play turned movie, A Streetcar Named Desire. While Raisin is no Streetcar, it is a similarly powerful, moving piece of work and acting masterclass.

It's rare to see a film version of a movie, be as good as the play version, but 1961's 'A Raisin in the Sun' does that. Based on the play made in 1959 by an African-American playwright and painter Lorraine Hansberry. Raisin in the Sun was the first drama written by a black woman to be produced on Broadway. Young Lorraine grew up in a Chicago's Woodlawn neighborhood and her own experiences lead to the play's story. She got the title of the play by finding it in a Langston Hughes's poem book 'Harlem' which is quotes in the poem 'A dream deferred'. The title, 'Raisin in the Sun' referred in the original poem about the hundreds of African American slaves that work in the hot sun in the cotton fields whom dream dry up like a raisin. In the play and the movie, its symbolism the frustration of blacks working trying to make a better life for themselves, but in the end, their dream are forgotten or put off due to the mixer of racism and classism. The movie story is about a working-class family called the Youngers. Living in a lousy apartment for decades, they want to and wish to leave the place behind. The central idea of the play is concerned with fighting off the myth of black contentment. It shows the stress of being in poverty when the large family is crammed into a small apartment. The plot get going when the family finds out that Lena AKA Mama (Claudia McNeil) got an insurance check for $10,000. Each members of the family find themselves having their own version of what to do with an insurance check. Walter Lee (Sidney Poitler) a poor chauffeur, dreams of making a fortune by investing the money in a liquor business against the wishes of both his wife and the mother. Sidney Poitler does a great job as Walter. It's one of his best roles in my opinion. You can see the want in his eyes. The pain, he goes through when it doesn't come his way. Powerful. Beneatha (Diana Sands), his flighty college student sister also wants the money so that she can be a doctor and live in Africa with one of her two boyfriends. One is a boy, George Murchison (Louis Gossett), a wealthy Negro concerned with appearances and material, while the second, Joseph Asagai (Ivan Dixon), is a native African that inspires her intellectually and spiritually. Great symbolism with Beneatha's hair in the film. When the movie begins, Beneatha has straightened hair. Midway through the play, after Asagai visits her and questions her hairstyle, she cuts her Caucasian-seeming hair for the new radical afro represents her embracing of her African heritage. Beneatha's cutting of her hair is a very powerful social statement in the 1960's, as she symbolically declares that natural black is beautiful and wouldn't conform to the style society dictates at the time. It's become a symbol of her anti-assimilationist beliefs. The film dealt with the talk about racism, not only with whites and blacks, but also black against black. One of the first major allusions to any sort of racism appears with the character of George Murchison. When the wealthy George enters the picture, the Younger family sees the differences in race and grouped him with snobbish white people. Mama dreams of buying a home in all-white neighborhood with her money, but fears that they would be faced with racist neighbors, and people trying to buy them out to prevent the neighborhood's integration. One such person trying to buy them out is Karl Aka Mark Linder (John Fielder) whom openly states the racism present in the neighborhood that Mama wants to live. While he at first sugarcoats his words, he tells the Youngers that they are not wanted in the neighborhood because they are Negroes. Mama's choice soon become troublesome, as one choice can lead them into deeply poverty or salvation. A Raisin in the Sun is essentially about dreams, as the main characters struggle to deal with the oppressive circumstances that rule their lives, both with happiness and depression. The movie follows a good amount of themes such as the need to fight racial discrimination in a powerfully demonstrates of the family strength. By having a strong family, it shows that the African American community, that the importance of family is key to success. One great thing about the movie is how little, they change from the play. Most of the movie takes place in the home. Was the bar scene really needed? Not really, the producers could had shown Walter's alcoholic nature, just with him coming home with a bottle, and we would get the same results. But by showing the audience how cramped the apartment is, we get how badly they are struggling. Plus, it's nice to see a movie with few cuts scenes. Director Daniel Petrie did a great job. I would had love to see more of Mama's plant. In the play, Mama's plant represents both Mama's care and her dream for her family. Still, the movie does a great job with dealing with other issues, such as abortion, greed, and the lack of religion. The movie follows the play very well. While, 2008's TV movie 'A Raisin in the Sun' does a good job as well. It's doesn't beat this movie by acting standards and scene delivery. While, one might label this as a 'black people' movie, I found its subject matter, universal. I think this film dealt with everything any common folk might have to deal with, and that's why I think the movie is so well-made.

Just watched the 2008 version before i watch this. One thing i can say is, which is a very clear difference, is that i am glad the 2008 version is adapted accordingly because i find this original less realistic in certain scenes.Perhaps that is because this movie is made to be like the play itself, using just the house as a constant setting throughout. But that would mean inevitable compromise for realistic-ness in terms of making a movie version of the play. The 2008 version successfully correct many parts involving these weaknesses in the original to make the overall plot make more sense. Anyway, I am sure that a movie of this calibre during the 60's is a hard to find classic even among its competitors.Though, I would comment positively on the overall acting in this movie. It is stronger than the 2008 version in general (except for the Nigerian bf and the mother and other sub-characters)

The tragically brief life of Lorraine Hansberry yielded a few literary gems among them A Raisin In The Sun, the first play on Broadway ever written by a black woman. Although Hansberry's childhood was a great deal more middle class than that of the Younger family who is the subject of the play, she captures the black urban experience of the civil rights era brilliantly. Some of the things written in A Raisin In The Sun were experienced by Hansberry personally, most particularly her own family's struggle to move into the white suburbs.Columbia Pictures had the good sense to hire Lorraine Hansberry to write the screenplay and convert her play which all takes place in the Younger family apartment in the south side of Chicago for the screen. There are a few brief scenes added outside the apartment. But what really holds the interest is the dialog between the four main characters in the apartment. It's a lot like Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night with souls laid bare. The apartment itself almost becomes a character, a home but also the symbol of a kind of prison the Youngers want to break out of.The four main characters are Walter Younger, Jr., his wife Ruth, his sister Berneatha, and mother Lena, played by Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee, Diana Sands, and Claudia McNeil respectively who all came over from Broadway. Through McNeil's performance particularly, but the others as well, the family patriarch Walter Younger also comes alive. What has happened is that he has recently died and the family is awaiting a $10,000.00 insurance check, courtesy of his years of service with the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first primarily black union to organize in the USA. Poitier is working as a chauffeur, both Dee and McNeil work and have worked as domestics, Sands is a young college student with the ideas of her time, but she's also been spoiled a whole lot. Each has their own idea of what to do with the insurance money. The conflict and what eventually does happen divides and then unites the family in the end.A Raisin In The Sun ran for 530 performances on Broadway during the 1959-60 season and earned a flock of Tony Award nominations including Best Actor for Poitier and Best Actress for McNeil. Coming out as it did during the Civil Rights era it was as timely a literary masterpiece as there ever was. When it concluded its Broadway run, film production with just about the entire cast from Broadway commenced.A couple of other players who would make their marks later on were in A Raisin In The Sun. Lou Gossett, Jr. years before his Oscar plays a young and naive college kid who is interested in Sands. But she's far more interested in Ivan Dixon who is from Nigeria way before he joined the cast of Hogan's Heroes. Though it is firmly set in the times it was written in, as drama A Raisin In The Sun is positively eternal. It's as flawless a transfer from stage to film as you'll ever see.