My Baby Is Black! (1961)/Checkerboard (1959) On DVD

While hanging out with her beatnik friends in Paris, Frances, an attractive young white woman, is introduced to Daniel, a handsome black medical student. Sparks fly and despite Daniel's concerns -- "Everywhere you go, people will point at you! Smirk when they see you coming!" -- the two have an affair that results in Francis becoming pregnant. Though her strict parents demand that she have an abortion, Frances is determined not only to have Daniel's child, but to shout to the world, "My Baby Is Black!".... A French production shown at U.S. grindhouses back in the day when interracial love was a hot-button topic, My Baby Is Black treads that oh-so-fine line between Art and Exploitation.

Plus: The tiny desert town of Cicada is a Checkerboard of poverty and racial tension that explodes when Bob, a 20-year-old white Army veteran, asks the lovely black-skinned Bessie to the Saturday night dance. Uh oh. Bob is attacked by white bigots, though a hooker blames the attack on the blacks. Before long, a lynch mob is looking for someone -- anyone -- to hang and almost strings up Bob until -- get this -- he throws his fake leg at them.... Imagine Southern-style sleaze done as an off-kilter art film by the French and you might have some idea of what to expect from this bizarre mix of sex, racism, and cynical humor....

These two French productions from director Claude Bernard-Aubert tackle race relations in a well-intentioned yet exploitative manner, and must have seemed campy even at the time of their original release. In MY BABY IS BLACK (1961), a young beatnik woman in Paris falls for a handsome black medical student. When she becomes pregnant with his child, she has to fight her own parents, who try to force her to get an abortion. CHECKERBOARD (1959) focuses on a small southern town called Cicada, where Bob, a young army veteran, asks an attractive black woman to the local dance. When he is attacked by bigots, the violence is blamed on the town's black community, and a lynch mob gathers; fortunately, Bob is able to hold them off by hurling his artificial leg at them. Both films, which have their hearts in the right place, are simultaneously fascinating and ridiculous.