"A Cat in a Strange Attic"

 

 (imdb)

I PASSED FOR WHITE-1960-Bernice Lee (Sonya Wilde) is light skinned African American who's frustrated and depressed over always being mistaken for white. She thinks it would be better if she just pretended to be white but her grandmother is against it. Nonetheless after being turned down for a job because she wrote "negro" on her application she decides to go to California and start a new life...as Leila Brownell, a white woman. She gets a better job and sends money home to her family. She doesn't include romance but that just happens when she falls in love with Rick Leyton (James Franciscus), an upper crust well to do white man. Of course she doesn't tell him about her "background" and their relationship is built on her lie after lie as she tries to stop from revealing her secret. Only her white girlfriend Sally (Pat Michon) knows the truth. It seems ok until hubby sees her talking to her black musician friend. Hubby punches the guy out as he's aghast. Later she becomes pregnant and worries what their child will look like. When she miscarries and asks if the baby was black, hubby thinks she was fooling around. Now suspected of being a floozie she leaves him and returns to her family without him never finding out her secret. 

This misguided low budget drama was the last picture made by director Fred Wilcox who's previous film (in 1956) had been FORBIDDEN PLANET.

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