Trailer
Plot summary
Claudine Price supports six children on welfare checks and the low wages of a housekeeping job in a wealthy household. She tells Miss Kabak, the social worker who visits her, that she is unemployed and single, since any job, gift or husband would cost the family benefits. Roop, a cheerful garbage collector with children from two earlier marriages, meets her at the house where she works and courts her. Her eldest son Charles, a member of a black activist group, resents the relationship, and the younger children are rude when Roop enters the apartment. Charlene, Claudine's teenage daughter, is pregnant.
Cast
- Yvette Curtisas Patrice
- Eric Jonesas Francis
- Socorro Stephensas Lurlene
- C. Harrison Averyas Minister (as Harrison Avery)
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Claudine (1974)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Diana Sands was originally cast as Claudine but fell ill after only a week of filming. Just before her death she called Carroll and insisted she take the role in her place; Cicely Tyson had also turned it down.
- Curtis Mayfield wrote and produced the film's score and soundtrack, with vocals by Gladys Knight & the Pips. The theme song On & On was a number five hit for Knight and the Pips on the Billboard Pop Singles Chart in 1974.
- Ivan Dixon, of Hogan's Heroes and Car Wash fame and a long-time friend of Diahann Carroll and James Earl Jones, can be spotted in a red shirt near the end of the film, in the crowd that follows Claudine as she hops into the police truck.
- On October 13, 2020, the Criterion Collection released Claudine on Blu-ray and DVD, touting a new 4K restoration of the film.
