Scott Carter is a skilled doctor - and a man without prospects. Rejection letters from hospitals pile up. His young wife is pregnant with their first child. Unable to land a job because of his race, Scott (Mel Ferrer) decides. "For one year of my life," he says, "I'm going to be a white man." That one year becomes two, then 10, then 20. But it's still only a matter of time before Scott's secret is out and he confronts racism in the New Hampshire town he's served for decades.

A light-skinned black family passes for white in this powerful, fact-based tale. Produced by Louis de Rochemont, one of the most acclaimed filmmakers of the late 1940s, Lost Boundaries belongs to a forward-looking cluster of postwar films that declared war on society's ills. Like Boomerang!, Pinky, Gentleman's Agreement and others of the era, it resonates with conviction, proving great issues are the stuff of great filmmaking.

A young black doctor in post-World War II America decides to compromise his racial identity in order to get a decent job. After he and his family move to the countryside of New Hampshire, they realize that since they are so light-skinned, they can pass for white people. Many years pass in this way, yet it is still only a matter of time before the doctor and his family must confront the racism prevalent in this part of small-town America.