Sapphire (1959)

 Basil Dearden's "Sapphire"

Basil Dearden's 1959 British film "Sapphire" takes the typical crime drama story and injects it with racial and social commentary. It was an incredibly progressive film for its time, given that stories about racial injustices wouldn't become popular until the decade after. Obviously, films like 1949's "Intruder in the Dust" and others have existed before, but the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s really encouraged more and more films of that nature to grow. 

"Sapphire" centers on two police investigators investigating the murder of a light-skinned black girl. In their search, they uncover a sprawling tapestry of racism and bigotry in modern Britain. By the end of the film, it becomes clear that this systemic problem will take generations to fix.

While I do feel as though the thematic points made about racial injustices are substantial, they can come across as clunky at times. I can afford these clunky aspects, however, seeing as though the film is completely well-intentioned. The murder mystery was less than interesting, given (because of the big-picture thematic point) that it is ever-apparent who committed the murder in the first place. While the film itself comes across and mildly uninteresting and a bit too on-the-nose, I grant its progressive importance at the time of its release all the same.