Lack of good storyline.

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

A colourful and imaginative rendering of the eternal "Carmen" drama in the deep south with Harry Belafonte and Dorothy Dandrige good enough as the soldier and his fatality, but for me the star of the film is Pearl Bailey as "Frankie", whose first appearance at the Villas Pasta scene immediately lifts the film to a higher level, and her performance in the film continues to sparkle throughout. Many of the scenes shine with originality in their often ingenious translation from the Andalusian stage to that of the deep south, and one of the most impressing is soon in the beginning, when Carmen Jones breaks loose from Harry Belafonte under his transport of her as a prisoner in a jeep. Of course, much of the lustre of Bizet's opera is lost in translation, especially since this is not an opera but a musical, and the texts are all Broadway and nothing of Prosper Merimée. The style is convincing enough, though, and the only disappointment is the substitution of Escamillo with a boxing champion, who is not very dashing but rather the opposite. The glory and drama of the bullfighting is replaced by a crude boxing match. At least, there is nothing wrong with the music, it's all Bizet and all his best tunes of the opera with only a few missing, and with such a golden magic music all through you can even gild the deep south in its most torpid and the dreariest Chicago slum with great lyrical drama, lasting charm and beauty.

The popular opera "Carmen," about the love affair between a soldier and a gypsy, is transported from 19th century Spain to 1940s U.S., with a black cast. Hammerstein provides the songs with English lyrics, but they fail to do justice to Bizet's magnificent music. Although Dandridge and Belanfonte could sing, their singing was dubbed as they could not carry operatic tunes. Dandridge looks beautiful in the title role, but her performance is weak. Belafonte does not fare too well either. It may not be the fault of the actors as much as the melodramatic and unengaging screenplay. Preminger, out of his element here, also deserves blame. The music should have carried the day, but the numbers are surprisingly lackluster.

First, the minuses. No one need try to guess about Belafonte being dubbed. That ain't his range. He is mellow, soft-voiced. Dandridge, of course was not a belter, but who cares? Pearl Bailey was Pearl Bailey. Brock (Broc) Peters was always a favorite, always an outstanding menacer.Credit 20th Century Fox, and Darryl F. Zanuck, the only major studio and exec to back African-American productions in those days.Some of the slower songs dragged somewhat, but the faster-paced items should have made Bizet proud. All in all, "Carmen Jones" gets high ratings for the bulk of the musical numbers, and the dancing which I would have liked to see more of.Getting back to Miss Dandridge. She played the part of the sultry Miss Jones to perfection. The story? Once again, it shows how a woman can screw up your life.One more thing. The ending was much too abrupt with Belafonte looking beautifully mean. It was choke-choke THE END.

Dreadfully awful. Horrible, crummy, stupid, worthless lyrics, no plot, horrible composition. Even worse than Rocky Horror Picture Show. Harry Belafonte's dubbing was in the hit in the crotch vocal style. The "new" lyrics Hammerstein wrote totally cheapen this film, to the point when it has no integrity. The plot is quite confusing. No continuity. And it's ridiculous, random, bizarre, scary, disturbing, spasmodic and every other negative adjective you can imagine when they burst into song. This movie is a shameless, dull, cheap, shoddy, pointless, disappointing, talentless (aside from Pearl Bailey), ridiculous, criminal, sad, silly, idiotic, crappy travesty.