Introducing Dorothy Dandridge

Halle Berry may have won Golden Globe for her performance, but there's a lingering feeling she was accoladed to atone for the shameful treatment meted out to the subject of Martha Coolidge's earnest, but unrevealing TV biopic. A poor judge of men and material, actress Dandridge was responsible for some of her own woes, but too little is made of the institutionalised racism that blighted 1950s Tinseltown and transformed the Oscar-nominated star of Carmen Jones into a marginalised, pill-popping drunk. Despite the award, Berry is too slight a talent for the part and she's easily overshadowed by Klaus Maria Brandauer's imposing Otto Preminger.