Double Feature!

TAKE A GIANT STEP 1959
U.S. film. "Sometimes Teenage is spelled T-N-T!" A very unique and underrated 1950s teenage movie—about a black teenager living a white world. R&B singer Johnny Nash plays Spence, a well-heeled black teenager who gets kicked out of his white, middle-class high school for making a scene during a discussion of slavery during history class. Later that day his white friends tell him he can't attend an event because some of the parents don't like "colored" people.

As Spence's parents come into the story we find out that they are dealing with the same "white man's world" issues that Spence is now discovering. His father's co-workers down at the bank use the N-word and his mother tells him to "know his place" and to be careful how he talks to white women. She says, "If we lived down south you could be lynched." Spence's 83 year-old grandmother is the only one who tells him to walk proud.

Feeling frustrated, Spence wanders the streets in the black part of town and enters a nightclub where he drinks whiskey and meets three prostitutes. Meanwhile his parents are worried over their son's whereabouts but they don't feel comfortable calling the police. Spence goes back to the apartment of one of the prostitutes where she puts the moves on him but all he has is $2.30—and she takes it!

In his search for identity and meaning, Spence begins to see an older woman (Ruby Dee) in a way he never did before, and an implied sexual relationship awakens him to a different, more adult view of life. Take A Giant Step packs a powerful punch in depicting how blacks coped in 1959 America. The hard-hitting situations and dialog makes this a "thinking man's" teenage movie. Johnny Nash, best known for his 1972 hit, "I Can See Clearly Now" sings the title song, "Take A Giant Step." Johnny Nash, Estelle Hemsley, Ruby Dee, Frederick O'Neal, Ellen Holly, Pauline Meyer, Beah Richards, Royce Wallace, Frances Foster, Delmar Erickson, Dee Pollock.

Plus this bonus selection...

JOHNNY NASH & OTHERS – MUSIC ON TV
From mid-60s TV. Johnny Nash: "Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye" and "Let's Move and Groove." Bobby Goldsboro: "Little Things." The Mad Lads: "Michael The Lover." Kim Weston: "Love You, Yes I Do." Mitch Ryder & Detroit Wheels: "C.C. Ryder."

TAKE A GIANT STEP 1959 movie on DVD and VHS!