HIGH YELLOW

Cynthia Wood, a 17-year-old, light-skinned Negro housemaid who passes for white, enters the employ of rich, unhappy movie magnate Langley. Langley, a tyrant who has a loveless marriage with a hypochondriac, rules his mansion as he does his studio. His own children, however, resist him: his son, George, has been wrongly accused of homosexuality and expelled from West Point, and his teenage daughter, Judy, is wild and promiscuous. Other members of the Langley household include Major Bates, a sadistic, retired Army officer who works as a handyman and keeps his job by blackmailing Langley, and Joseph, the brooding Negro chauffeur who plans to steal the family silver and finance his own garage business. Cynthia's dreams of passing for white are destroyed by this angry, frustrated, violent household.