Claudine is a 1974 American romantic comedy-drama film, produced by Third World Cinema and distributed by 20th Century Fox, starring James Earl Jones, Diahann Carroll, and Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs. Claudine was written by Lester Pine and Tina Pine, and directed by John Berry. The film was released on April 22, 1974, grossing about $6 million, a modest hit for the times. It was praised for showing a new dimension in black cinema during the height of blaxploitation.

Plot

The film tells the story of Claudine Price (Diahann Carroll), a single Black Harlem mother, living on welfare with six children, who finds love with a garbage collector, Rupert "Roop" Marshall (James Earl Jones). The pair's relationship is complicated by their poverty, the restrictions of the welfare system and the hostility of her children, particularly eldest son Charles (Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs), who believes that Roop will leave their mother just like her previous husbands had.