Before I begin, I have to confess something: I watched this again knowing full-well that I still love it, so this is going to be completely biased.
Perfect Harmony was released in 1991, when I was in kindergarten. It almost feels like it should have been made before then because I watched it so often as a kid, it’s hard to believe there were five years of my life before it existed. Disney was the only channel my sheltered sister and I were allowed to watch for years, so I can even remember the commercials. They used to play short promotional videos with interviews and clips from upcoming productions in between programming. I particularly remember the ones for Perfect Harmony because my sister, who was three and whom we didn’t realize could read yet, once looked at the screen and said, “Look, Mom! It’s Catherine Mary Stuart!” when the actress was talking about her part. We thought it was some kind of miracle and still joke about it now, although years later she confessed to me that she hadn’t actually read it, she had just seen the commercials so many times that she knew the actress’s name by heart. Filthy liar. (Just kidding–love ya, sis!)
There are lots of talented actors in the credits: Justin Whalin, Eugene Byrd, Peter Scolari, Darren McGavin, Moses Gunn, Catherine Mary Stuart, David Faustino, and Cleavon Little, among others. It’s more of a family movie than anything, so the acting isn’t hammy like you might expect from a kids’ movie. It’s still very watchable as an adult.
I credit this movie far more than all the in-school celebrations of Black History Month (during which we watched this a few times) in teaching me about what racism is and how it manifests—at least insofar as a little white girl can understand such things. It really put the history we learned about later into perspective. I remember watching it for the first time and wondering why anyone would want to treat other people that way, and why there were scary people in ghostly white hoods marching around.
The story, set in 1959 South Carolina, follows the blossoming friendship of Taylor, the up-and-coming Head Boy at a prodigious boarding academy, and Landy, nephew of the school caretaker from the “wrong side of the tracks”. The two are drawn together by a shared love of music and spend most of the film teaching each other about the styles with which they grew up.
Obviously, music features prominently in this movie, and it’s worth a watch if for no other reason than to hear it. Disney is strangely silent on the subject of who the actual vocalists are (there’s no credit anywhere), and there’s no soundtrack, so you’ll have all these great songs stuck in your head with no way to replay them except to watch the movie over, but again, worth it.
There’s a lot of still-relevant dialogue about the differences between the North and the South. In one of the first scenes, the headmaster’s daughter giggles when the new choir director/history teacher, Mr. Sanders, is speaking and says, “You just talk different—‘pahk the cah’!” Later, one of the kids mentions that Mr. Sanders is a Yankee, and Paul, the school bully, interjects, “Yeah. Now the school has two [N-word]-lovers.” (Yes, this movie portrays racist characters using that word, so that’s something to be aware of before showing your kids. Again, just as with The Journey of Natty Gann, there are some scenes that are necessarily dark and even downright scary for a kid, given the subject matter, and parents should be advised beforehand.) Paul’s comment is intended as a jab at the only other Yankee character, a kid named Marc who gives a short speech later in class when they’re discussing Woodrow Wilson’s quote, “Because I love the South, I rejoice in the failure of the Confederacy.” When I see and hear hateful bickering between political parties today, I still hear the voice of this kid talking about us becoming, “once again, the United States of America”.
The word ‘tradition’ is thrown around a lot as an excuse to keep people segregated. “These boys are going to rule the country someday. They can’t have black people getting in their way. It’s Tradition!” There’s a whole side plot about the people from River Town protesting at the pool because their swimming hole is unsafe, and the white Sheriff shows up and chastises them for “getting the people riled up over something as silly as where to go swimming”. I mean, really. If it’s so silly, then why can’t everyone swim in the same place? As the preacher pointed out, they were the ones who built it. Later on a kid actually dies in the swimming hole and the River Town people show up to protest again. Miss Hobbs (the headmaster’s daughter) says, in a voice like a fly just landed in her wine, “Can you believe those boys?”, and when the casket appears a moment later, just hurries off, completely unconcerned by their plight. I don’t think I ever noticed as a kid what a total brat she was.
Something else I didn’t grasp as a kid was that Mr. Sanders did not have a long and successful career at that school. The movie ends on a high note (see what I did there?), but Mr. Hobbs is visibly frustrated at a black kid being allowed to sing in his school choir, and I finally realized that when we see Mr. Sanders’ car leaving during the end credits, to mirror its arrival during the opening ones, it means he was pretty much finished at that place, despite having made a tremendous impact.
Landy’s uncle had a quote I really liked (and I think I’m paraphrasing a bit): “I have a special place where I keep my sorrow. It stays hidden away, and when I want to, I take it out and be with it.” I’m just placing it here because I want to remember it.
Side note: I met David Faustino earlier this year. He was completely blown away by the fact that I remembered this movie. His character always scared me when I was a kid, but he was really nice!
