A Raisin in the Sun

Synopsis: Walter Lee Younger is a young man struggling with his station in life. Sharing a tiny apartment with his wife, son, sister and mother, he seems like an imprisoned man. Until, that is, the family gets an unexpected financial windfall...
Genre: Drama
Director(s): Daniel Petrie
Production: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
  Nominated for 2 Golden Globes. Another 3 wins & 5 nominations.
 
IMDB:
8.1
Rotten Tomatoes:
100%
APPROVED
Year:
1961
128 min
7,763 Views


Wake up.

Come on now, honey.

Get up!

Come on.

It's 7:
30.

I said, hurry up, Travis.

You're not the only person

in the world got to use a bathroom.

Walter Lee, it's after 7:30.

Let me see you do

some waking up in there now.

You just go ahead

and lay there.

Next, Travis'll be finished

and Mr. Johnson'll be in.

And you'll be fussing and cussing

like a madman and be late.

Walter Lee Younger...

...it is time for you

to get up!

Ain't he out yet?

Out? He ain't hardly

got in there good yet.

What you doing all that yelling for

if I can't get in there?

That check coming today?

They said Saturday.

This is just Friday.

I hope you ain't getting up...

...talking about money.

I don't want to hear it.

What's with you this morning?

I'm just sleepy.

What kind of eggs you want?

Not scrambled.

You're just a little old happy

woman this morning, ain't you?

What's he doing in that bathroom?

He has to start getting up earlier.

He won't be getting up

one second earlier.

I can't afford to be late for work

because of him.

Ain't his fault he can't

get to bed earlier.

He's got a bunch of clowns

sitting up...

...running their mouths in

what's supposed to be his bedroom.

That's what you're mad about.

Things I want to talk to my friends

about just couldn't be important.

Such friends as you got.

You look young this morning, baby.

Just for a second, stirring

them eggs, you look real young again.

It's gone now.

You look like yourself again.

If you don't shut up

and leave me alone...

The first thing a man should learn...

...is not to make love to no woman

early in the morning.

You all are some evil creatures

8:
00 in the morning.

Daddy, come on!

Grandma's staying home from work

from now on?

That's right, baby.

Hey, insurance check

comes tomorrow?

Get your mind off money

and eat your breakfast.

This is the morning I'm supposed

to bring 50 cents to school.

I ain't got no 50 cents

this morning.

Teacher said we have to.

I don't care.

I ain't got it.

- Aw, Mama!

- Hush!

Just eat.

Could I maybe go carry groceries

at the supermarket...

...after school then?

If you're through eating,

make up your bed.

- I'm gone!

- Got your milk money?

Yes, ma'am.

I wouldn't kiss that woman

goodbye this morning.

Not for nothing in this world.

Not for nothing in this world.

Whose little angry man are you?

Oh, golly, Mama!

Better get out of here

before you be late.

Could I please

go carry groceries?

Honey, you should play evenings.

What's he want to do?

Carry groceries after school

at the supermarket.

Let him go. It's good for him

to be business-minded.

I have to.

She won't give me the 50 cents.

- Why not?

- Because we don't have it.

What do you tell the boy

things like that for?

Here you are, son.

In fact...

...here's another 50 cents.

Get some fruit or take a cab to school.

Hot dog!

I think you better get down

and go to school.

Okay.

Bye.

That's my boy.

Know what I was thinking

about this morning?

I know what you was thinking,

and I won't hear it again.

I know what you was thinking,

and I won't hear it again.

About what me and Willie Harris

talked about.

Willie Harris is

a good-for-nothing loudmouth.

Anybody who'd talk to me has to

be a good-for-nothing loudmouth.

Charlie Atkins was one too.

Wanted me to go into business with him.

Now his dry cleaners grosses

$100,000 a year. $100,000 a year.

Still a loudmouth

good-for-nothing.

Oh, Walter Lee!

You're tired, ain't you, baby?

You oh so tired of everything.

Me, the boy, the way we live

in this beat-up hole. Everything.

Moaning and groaning.

But you wouldn't help.

You couldn't be on my side, could you?

Please, leave me alone.

A man needs a woman to back him.

Mama would listen to you...

...more than me and Bennie.

All you do is sit down with her

one morning...

...when you're having coffee

and talking like you do.

Just say that you've been thinking

about this deal...

...Walter Lee's so interested in

about the store.

Sip at your coffee

like it ain't important to you.

Soon, she's listening good

and asking questions.

I come home.

I fill in the details.

Please, leave me alone.

This ain't no

fly-by-night operation.

We got this figured out.

Me, Willie and Bobo.

Bobo?

We figure the initial investment

on the place to be about $30,000.

That's $10,000 apiece.

Of course...

...we got to spread around a few

hundred to get our license approved.

You mean graft.

Don't call it that.

Goes to show you how much

women know about the world.

Baby, don't nothing happen for you

unless somebody gets paid off.

Leave me alone!

Eat your eggs.

They'll be cold.

See?

Man say to his woman,

"I got a dream."

She says,

"Eat your eggs. They getting cold."

Man say, " Help me to take a hold

in this world."

She says, " Eat your eggs.

Go to work."

I got to change my life

because I'm choking to death...

...and all you say to me is,

"Eat these eggs."

That ain't our money, and I ain't

going to harass your mama about it.

I looked in the mirror and thought,

I'm 35 years old.

I'm married 11 years.

And I got a boy who sleeps in the

living room because I got nothing.

Nothing to give him but stories!

Like on how rich white people live.

- Eat your eggs.

- Damn these eggs!

Damn all the eggs that ever was!

Then go to work!

I'm trying to talk to you.

About me.

Now all you going to say to me is,

"Eat these eggs"?

You never say anything new.

I listen to you every day.

Every morning, every night.

You never say nothing new.

So you'd rather be Mr. Arnold

than be his chauffeur. So?

I'd rather be living in

Buckingham Palace.

That's what's wrong

with the coloured woman.

You don't build your men up.

Make them feel they're somebody

and can do something.

- There are coloured men who do things.

- No thanks to the coloured woman.

Being a coloured woman,

I guess I can't help myself none.

- I got to start timing those people.

- You should get up earlier.

Really?

When would you suggest, dawn?

You're horrible-looking

this time of morning.

Good morning, Brother.

- How's your school coming?

- Oh, lovely, lovely.

Biology's the greatest.

I dissected something

looked like you yesterday.

I was just...

...wondering if you

made up your mind.

What did I answer yesterday?

- And the day before?

- Don't be so nasty.

And the days before that?

I'm interested. Is that wrong?

It ain't every day no girl

decides to be a doctor!

Come on out of there, please!

- That check is coming.

- That money belongs to Mama.

It's for her to decide

how she'll use it.

I don't care if she buys

a house or a rocket.

Or just nail it up

and look at it.

It's hers.

Not ours. Hers.

You are such a nice girl.

You've got your mother's interest

at heart, ain't you?

Mama got that money, she can always

help you through school.

I never asked anyone

to do anything for me.

The line between asking

and just accepting is wide.

You want me to quit school?

Rate this script:3.5 / 2 votes

Lorraine Hansberry

Lorraine Vivian Hansberry (May 19, 1930 – January 12, 1965) was an African-American playwright and writer.Hansberry was the first black female author to have a play performed on Broadway. Her best known work, the play A Raisin in the Sun, highlights the lives of Black Americans living under racial segregation in Chicago. Hansberry's family had struggled against segregation, challenging a restrictive covenant and eventually provoking the Supreme Court case Hansberry v. Lee. The title of the play was taken from the poem "Harlem" by Langston Hughes: "What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?" At the young age of 29, she won the New York's Drama Critic's Circle Award — making her the first African American dramatist, the fifth woman, and the youngest playwright to do so.After she moved to New York City, Hansberry worked at the Pan-Africanist newspaper Freedom, where she dealt with intellectuals such as Paul Robeson and W. E. B. Du Bois. Much of her work during this time concerned the African struggle for liberation and their impact on the world. Hansberry has been identified as a lesbian, and sexual freedom is an important topic in several of her works. She died of cancer at the age of 34. Hansberry inspired Nina Simone's song "To Be Young, Gifted and Black". more…

All Lorraine Hansberry scripts | Lorraine Hansberry Scripts

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Submitted on August 05, 2018

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    "A Raisin in the Sun" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 Nov. 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/a_raisin_in_the_sun_2007>.

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