Lulu Belle (film)

Lulu Belle is a 1948 American drama musical romance film directed by Leslie Fenton and starring Dorothy Lamour. The film was a loose and highly sanitized adaptation of Charles MacArthur and Edward Sheldon's hit 1926 Broadway play of the same name. The play was a critique of American middle class morality and inter-racial relationships and told the story of Lulu Belle, a black cabaret performer and prostitute in Harlem, who becomes the object of desire for first a white married barber and later a white boxer.

The play's theme of miscegenation and its authentic depiction of black life and community in 1920s Harlem was completely removed from the film; which was uncomfortable with the play's openness about both sex and race. The resulting film was a convoluted and heavily Code-censored film version of the play. Lulu Belle was transformed from a black prostitute from Harlem into a white blues singer from Mississippi who could not be true to her boxer beau. The film also transformed the play into a musical as the original stage work contained little music. The film also re-wrote the ending. In the play Lulu is murdered and no characters are left in a positive situation. In the film Lulu is only injured and the work ends on a bitter-sweet note. Although the film offered a change of pace for its star, Dorothy Lamour, it was not a success at the box office.