Synopsis:

Dorothy Dandridge, beautiful, multi-talented & a box office hit, all in one package! A director's dream come true & a film company's golden goose. Sadly, this dream turned into a very real nightmare. Had she been born 50 years later, she would have had the world at her fingertips, unfortunately, she was just too soon for her time. Racism was the order of the day & Black actors/actresses were reduced to playing "mammies", maids, bums or whores. Dorothy Dandridge was destined to break that cycle. Imagine if you will, being an incredible box office star working with the likes of Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte & famed Director/Actor Otto Preminger! Then imagine staying in the most luxuriant hotels & having to use a Dixie cup as a toilet, using the back doors only to enter the main hall where YOU are the top listed performer, not being allowed to talk to any of the patrons & not being allowed to swim in the hotel pool! These are only some of the indignities suffered by Dorothy Dandridge. Dorothy's story is one of extremes. Her childhood was extremely painful & abusive and her marriages were much the same. Always searching for love, acceptance & success, she received little of each but none in its truest form until the last days of her life. The first Black woman/person ever nominated for an Academy Award, is probably the highest professional accolade she received. Not too shabby! Yet, when she stuck her toes in the pool of a Las Vegas hotel in which she was staying, it was drained & "sanitized" because of her color. Demeaning really doesn't put the finest point on it but it does address the utter absurdity & ignorance of the time. Introducing Dorothy Dandridge does just that. This labor of love re-introduces her to a public that barely knew her & presents her to a brand new generation of fans. So much potential unfulfilled, so many dreams washed away, so many opportunities missed. Dorothy should have been greater, larger & far more successful. Unfortunately, hers is a story without the happy ending she so desperately wanted & deserved.

Audio:

The audio is presented in Dolby Stereo Surround & it does a surprisingly good job at conveying the audio portion of the disc. The film has a lot of music & a great amount of dialogue. Without the 5.1 separation, everything seems to be coming from both the right & left channels, no center. All in all a good stereo mix. The musical numbers are great and the score in & of itself is haunting. A bit reminiscent of the score for Mommy Dearest.

Video:

As this was produced for HBO, the film is presented in 4:3 full frame format. The colors as presented are rich & true. There were only a couple of very minor instances where, a fleck of something may have crossed the screen but overall, the images were extremely clean.

Extras:

There are a couple of documentaries on the production of the film, as well as cast & crew interviews that were conducted prior to the film's release. I know this because I saw them on HBO. However, they never made it to the disc. Not even a trailer for the film made it & they were all over HBO for at least a month prior to its debut. A nice touch would have been for Halle Berry to provide a brief introduction to the film, in addition to sharing her insights on the evolution of this, her dream role. What was included were, cast & crew information that were their usual static, uninteresting, uninvolving selves.

Overall:

Introducing Dorothy Dandridge is an awesome retrospective look at the life of one of the most underrated & under appreciated actors of our time. She worked hard to get the little bit that she earned but deserved a whole lot more. More than the world at that time was willing to give her. It's heartbreaking & inspiring all at the same time. Her light had barely begun to shine before it was put out. It's really an American tragedy, just not a well known one.