A genuine oddity: a 1950 adaptation of Richard Wright’s great novel of black Chicago, with the author himself as the hero, Bigger Thomas, shot in Buneos Aires by French director Pierre Chenal. Wright is clearly too old for the part, and there are many other ways in which the film can’t begin to do justice to the extraordinary power and density of the original, but it’s still a noble and interesting if highly uneven effort. With Jean Wallace, Gloria Madison, and Nicholas Joy. (JR)