Parody of Carmen? I think not. That's like calling West Side Story a parody of Romeo and Juliet. This Carmen is set the story in WWII South and followed the original quite well. It was groundbreaking in that it was the first big budget film with an all-Negro (to use the term of the day) cast. Although it was not the first time a major studio made all-black cast movies (Green Pastures and Stormy Weather), it was the first to transpose material across racial lines. A few years later Anna Lucasta would be remade with an all-black cast starring Eartha Kitt and Sammy Davis, Jr.