No doubt about it this may be the strangest role Sidney Poitier ever took on. But
at the same time he did a haunting performance as Brother John whose arrival in
town for his sister's funeral is cause for speculation in the southern town he hails
from.
Will Geer the town doctor upon hearing Poitier is in town says that Poitier has
never returned but for family members when they die, both parents and now
his sister. He keeps in no touch, but always knows.
He muses out loud to his district attorney son Bradford Dillman who in turn
talks to redneck sheriff Ramon Bieri and let's say they perform their own
highly illegal investigation because this man hasn't done anything. But he's
a well dressed black man with good speech and manners so who knows what
he could be up to. There's a strike going on in town at a factory which is their
largest employer and he could be some leftwing agitator, a communist who
knows.
Poitier isn't getting along any better with the black people he grew up with.
They think he's a snob and the girl he dated at one time Beverly Todd can't
figure him out.
Poitier is one of those humans who apparently has been granted certain
insights the rest of us don't have. It's not in their nature to make really close
friends. We've seen this in several films, two I can cite are The Passing Of The
Third Floor Back with Conrad Veidt and one who was granted a bit more than
insight to is Michael Clarke Duncan in The Green Mile.
The beautiful thing about a film like Brother John is that you can put almost
any kind of interpretation on it. Watch it and create your own.
