CLAUDINE made a warm and welcome appearance in 1974, earning applause from critics and an Oscar nomination for its title star. While 48th place at the box office may not seem like a big deal, its $9,100,000 gross registered a solid hit since it had been produced for just $1,100,000. More than money and peer praise this honest, funny and touching slice of urban African-American life, arriving in the middle of a wave of mostly crummy blaxploitation fantasies, offered not shootouts with honkies or a guilt trip for bleeding libs, but a single mother’s predicaments and strengths, a family’s bickering and bonding, and a mature romance with sexual politics as a given part of the deal. *

Harlem, the early 1970s. ‘Claudine Price’ (Diahann Carroll) is a 36-year-old single mother with six children, tots to teens, barely making ends meet with help, albeit qualified, from welfare. Gregarious garbageman ‘Roop Marshall’ (James Earl Jones) fancies her, but when their involvement goes from playful to partners to possibly permanent, the realities of family obligation (his previous, hers front & center), financial tripwires and freedom (or the lack of it) bear down.

Though the feel-good finale pushes credulity a mite, most of what comes before is solid, and several passages are standouts. The first intro of Roop to Claudine’s squabbling, suspicious kids is a marvel of besieged parenting, choice enough that it was given a prominent spot in ‘The Cities’ segment of the excellent Bicentennial feature documentary America At The Movies. Claudine’s raging confrontation with her daughter ‘Charlene’ (Tamu Blackwell, 18 and terrific) is a cyclone of raw emotion. Jones plays it big (as per the character) but the revelation is the splendid, pitch-perfect job from Carroll as the beleaguered heroine. At 38, she’d been in films for twenty years (Carmen Jones, Porgy And Bess) but was mostly known for her three years in the TV series Julia. It’s safe, sanitized soap held no hint of the sort of passion, flint, guts and truth she’d bring to this role, enough to earn an Oscar nomination for Best Actress (losing in a fair fight to another single mom saga, Ellen Burstyn in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore) but further film parts didn’t come her way. It’s a world-class performance.

Tartly written by Lester & Tina Pine, directed by John Berry (Casbah, He Ran All The Way),  with score and songs from Curtis Mayfield, sung by Gladys Knight & The Pips. Shot on location in Harlem.

With Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs (20,debut), David Kruger, Yvette Curtis, Elisa Loti, Eric Jones, Socorro Stephens and Roxie Roker. 92 minutes.

* The 70’s delivered a handful of sincere, if a bit stodgy, dramas about the black experience in/of America (Sounder, The Learning Tree) and a few okay comedies (Uptown Saturday Night, Let’s Do It Again) but violent ripoffs of Shaft and Superfly were as prevalent as junk mail. In ’74 Claudine had to battle for turf against Three The Hard Way, Truck Turner, Foxy Brown, TNT Jackson and Black Belt Jones. It leaves their posing in the street.