The Story of a Three-Day Pass

It’s among the great American films of the sixties—including Juleen Compton’s Stranded and Jim McBride’s David Holzman’s Diary—that display the global reach of that Paris-centered movement.

The film is a kind of gentle cross between Hiroshima Mon Amour and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner—a little hard to imagine, it is true, but less pretentious than the first and less false than the second. If you like one of them I think you are obliged to like all three.

A sad and funny examination of issues of racial subjugation, cultural stereotypes and sexual mores. Although some of its filmmaking techniques seem naive and anachronistic now, there is much that is bold, inventive and poignant about Van Peebles' feature debut. [09 Nov 1994, p.E01]

An impressive first feature from Melvin Van Peebles has a black American soldier, Baird, stationed in France and visiting Paris on a three-day pass.

Just as Baird is sustained by his self-mockery, this tender and witty film is saved from sentimentality by its satirical edge. [19 Apr 1998, p.3]