На пути к свободе: История Даффа Андерсона

1964 film by Michael Roemer
Although it was not widely seen upon release due to difficulties in finding distribution, the film is now generally considered to be an important example of neorealistic American cinema. In 1993, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Duff Anderson works on a railroad section gang near Birmingham, Alabama, earning a good wage and living an itinerant life with his black co workers. On their night off, while the other men drink and visit a pool hall, Duff decides to walk into the nearby small town, and ends up at a church meeting featuring good food and lively gospel music. There, Duff meets the pretty and genteel schoolteacher Josie, the daughter of Preacher Dawson. They begin to date against the wishes of Josie's father and stepmother, who think the relatively uneducated, non religious, and (to them) arrogant Duff is not good enough for Josie. Despite her parents' objections, Josie continues to see Duff, partly because Duff shows himself willing to resist and challenge the social conventions that oppress black people, rather than just accepting the status quo in order to get along with white people, as Josie's father has done. Initially, Duff is just looking for a sexual relationship and tells Josie he doesn't want to get married. But after Duff visits his four year old illegitimate son in the care of an unloving, indifferent stepmother, and his emotionally abusive, hardly functioning drunken father (Harris) living off his girlfriend (Lee), Duff realizes that he prefers the stability of a family to the life of a drifter. Duff and Josie marry with bright hopes for the future but then begin to face a series of challenges as a married couple. Duff quits the section gang and takes a lower paying job at the local sawmill in order to have a stable home life. Being on the move had given Duff the illusion of freedom, but living in the town makes Duff subject to the town's social rules, and he immediately starts to have problems. Unlike his peers, Duff refuses to pretend to be friendly to white people who treat him obnoxiously or patronize him. Duff tries to encourage his black co workers at the mill to stick together and stand up for their rights, but one of them informs on him to the white mill bosses, who suspect him of being a union organizer and troublemaker. After Duff refuses to follow his white boss's order to retract his statements to the other men, Duff is fired, and subsequently finds himself blacklisted at other area mills. Despite diligently searching for work, he is unable to find another job that is not humiliating and that also pays enough to support his family, now including a baby on the way. Duff hates his preacher father in law, whom he sees as having sold out to the white people in return for social status and economic gain, and he hurtfully says to his wife, "You've never really been a nigger, living with them, in that house." Nevertheless, out of concern for Josie, Preacher Dawson uses his connections in the town to get Duff a job at a white owned gas station. Soon, white customers who find Duff too proud for a black "boy" threaten to cause trouble if the boss keeps him on, and he loses that job as well. Although Josie is understanding, Duff, under emotional pressure and in a rage, shoves his pregnant wife to the floor when she tries to comfort him. Duff packs his bag and leaves their house, telling Josie that he will write her when he is on his feet again. Duff storms off to his father, and finds him so inebriated that he dies as Duff and Lee are driving him to the hospital. Neither Duff nor Lee know where Duff's father was born or how old he was, and the only possessions he has handed down to Duff are the contents of his pockets. Duff decides to return home with his young son, whom Josie had been wanting to adopt. Duff and Josie tearfully embrace as he reassures her that it "ain't gonna be easy, baby, but it's going to be alright. Baby, I feel so free inside”.

The screenplay was written by Robert M. Young and Michael Roemer, who drew on his own background as a Jew persecuted by Nazis. Roemer had fled Nazi Germany as an 11 year old child on the Kindertransports. Before starting to write, Roemer and Young went on a quest to understand and get to know the African American culture of the South. They “left on an Underground Railway in reverse”. As liberal Jews in the South, they were treated by whites as pariahs and warned that their food might be poisoned, causing them to relate strongly to the black families whom they met. They allowed themselves to be passed on from one family and community to the next so they could learn as much as possible about the relationships and experiences. One morning in Mississippi, the plot of a young couple's struggles and the man's relationship with his father came to Roemer, and the script was written in six weeks as soon as they were back in New York City. Although the script was written quickly, casting took several months. Charles Gordone was responsible for introducing the writers to some of the main talent, including Broadway actor Ivan Dixon, who went on to play the role of Staff Sergeant James Kinchloe on the CBS TV sitcom Hogan's Heroes, and jazz great Abbey Lincoln. Julius Harris made his acting debut in the film playing Duff's father. Harris was a nurse before he was cast, but had always wanted to act. Yaphet Kotto also had his first credited movie role in the film, playing a railroad worker. Both Harris and Kotto went on to appear in many more films and television programs over the next four decades. At the last minute, the film's title was almost changed to Duff Anderson.

A novelization of the film by noted pulp crime writer Jim Thompson was published in 1970.