Moment of Danger (1960)

Dorothy Dandridge is the only reason to see this awful film. The plot sucks. The dialog is really stupid. The film is racist because Dorothy and Trevor are not allowed to touch even though they share the same bed. This was Dorothy's last film and the desperation shows. After her Oscar nominated role as "Carmen Jones" in 1954 Dandridge was offered only one more starring role in a big production movie because Hollywood didn't know what to do with a beautiful black leading lady...thus relegating the star to whatever low budget B or foreign films her devoted manager could scrounge up. "Porgy and Bess" followed five years after "Carmen" but was universally panned or boycotted by blacks resenting the mammy images and blatant racial stereotypes created by producer Otto Preminger, Dorothy's back door white lover.Actually Trevor Howard is much too ugly to kiss beautiful Dorothy Dandridge...race aside. She should have been given a handsome leading man like her lightweight boyfriend in this film. Still I would love to see legitimate quality copies of MALAGA, MURDER MEN, and PORGY & BESSS released on DVD.

I remembered this film as a child when it would come on Channel 7 movie. I could not believe this was Ms. Dandridge's last film role because she was so good. Hopefully this movie will be on DVD. The cast was so good and due to Jim Crow they could show kissing between black and whites in films like they can now. I've always liked Trevor Howard and he was quite good in Malaga. After Carmen Jones Ms. Dandridge did other films such as Island in The Sun Porgy and Bess, The Decks Ran Red and Tamango and except for Porgy and Bess she always seem to be lusted after by white men. But Ms. Dandridge to me was our Marilyn Monroe! This movie is rarely shown on TV whether cable or not! For Black History month certain stations would mostly show Sidney Poitier movies as if that is what Black History is all about. Some people never heard of Dorothy Dandridge until Halle Berry portrayed on HBO! They say you're as good as last film and this film would be the last for Ms. Dandridge and we will never know what other film roles she would have done.

Forget Carmen Jones! This is Dorothy Dandridge's greatest performance on film, bar none. Her disillusioned, world-weary, but still hopeful Gianna is the essence of film noir. The parallels to her life are eerie. She says to Johnny (Trevor Howard), "No, with us, Johnny, it has to be everything -- or nothing." "Everything and Nothing" would be the title of her posthumously-published autobiography a few years later. She says, "London was my Mexico. There isn't any Mexico for anybody, anywhere." The day she died, she was to return to Mexico to do some television and film work.Forget the drivel published in most movie-listing books. Watch this film for yourself (if you can find a way to do so). This is a master actress giving everything she has to a role. I would love to see a brand-new director's cut with the outtakes replaced. The haunting music is by Matyas Seiber, who studied composition under Bela Bartok. This film is new every time you watch it.

Dorothy finished up her film career with this great film about two drifters trying to find a jewel thief who has wronged them, Dorothy is very effective playing this world weary woman, because she herself was weary in her own life, she plays the part with no make-up and a not so becoming wig, but manages to look breath-taking none the less, i think her character Gianna is the best she ever played, even more than Carmen because the line between fact and fiction blurred in this, the rest of cast is also effective, Dorothy and Trevor worked well together, and should have been paired in another film.this is a hard to find film, but worth it to see Dorothy in her last film role.