Corman Tackles Racism

 

 (the movie database)

THE INTRUDER-1962-Smooth talking snake oil salesman Adam Cramer (William Shatner) comes to town to stir up racial tension on the eve of school desegregation. He represents "The Patrick Henry Society" and wants to fight against integration even though it's the law. Lots of dumb racist hicks (including Robert Emhardt) rally to him. He leads the KKK through town and is indirectly responsible for the death of a black minister. He uses a newspaper owner's daughter (Beverly Lundsford) to bring phony rape charges against a black student (Charles Barnes). Salesman Sam Griffin (Leo Gordon) knows Cramer is only smoke and mirrors and a pathetic coward. This all comes out in the finale which takes place in a schoolyard. 

The script is by Charles Beaumont (based on his novel) who also plays a persecuted teacher. Two other writers, William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson, have small roles. Pretty daring stuff for director Roger Corman to tackle in 1962 but he does a fine job. Brother Gene co-produced it.

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Stupid Stuff

 

 (letterbox.com)

ILLUSION OF BIAS-2009-If you have 6 minutes to waste you might enjoy this strange overrated short about a girl and her nightmares. Good luck!

 (imdb)

CHLOE LOVE IS CALLING YOU-1934-Creaky old-time capsule made on a shoestring budget about Mandy (Georgette Harvey), a Louisiana voodoo practitioner who seeks revenge on the Colonel (Francis Joyner) and the other white men who lynched her husband. Her light skinned daughter Chloe (Caucasian Olive Borden) longs not to be black and wants a better life. Luckily, she meets Wade (Reed Howes), a superior white guy who works for The Colonel. Jim, a black local, is in love with Chloe but she rejects him (Jim is played by future character actor Phil Ober, a white guy!). This thing is so misguided, racist and offensive you might want to see it just to believe it! Once thought to be lost, some genius found it….

Titular heroine Borden (said to be an actually distant relative of Lizzy) was once the highest paid actress in Hollywood after being discovered by Mack Sennett. Unfortunately, the coming of sound movies, a love triangle scandal and alcohol helped doom her career. She died destitute in LA's skid row at age 40. 

CHLOE was her last film. 

Leading man Howes was also a popular silent screen star but his career faded in the sound era and he played villains in many westerns in the '40's and '50's. He played a police inspector in Ed Wood's THE SINISTER URGE in1960 four years before his death at age 64. His last appearance was on an episode of TV's “Mr. Ed”.  

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Three Way

 

 

 (wikipedia)

THREE THE HARD WAY-1974-Record producer Jimmy Lait (Jim Brown), PR man Jagger Daniels (Fred Williamson) and Kung Fu guy Mr. Keyes (Jim Kelly) team up to rescue Jimmy's wife (Sheila Frazier) from the clutches of the racist madman Monroe Feather (Jay Robinson) and his mad scientist pal (Richard Angarola) who's created a secret formula to destroy all our black brothers and sisters. There's lots of fights and shootouts. Keyes gets help from his Asian friend (David Chow). Later Feather has a party where his Aryan troops all wear Guardian Angels like red berets. Despite the overwhelming numbers the trio invades Feather's citadel and destroy everything and everybody. Alex Rocco, Jeanie Bell, Irene Tsu and Roberta Collins have small roles. The weirdest part is the three topless women Jagger hires to torture a hit man. 

Director Gordon Parks, Jr. keeps the movie going at a fast pace despite the thin plot. It could have been better but seems the selling point were the three stars themselves. Parks' best-known film is SUPERFLY (1972). He made THOMASINA & BUSHROD the same year as THREE. He only completed one more film after this as he was killed in a plane crash over Kenya while making a film called “Revenge”. It was later finished by another director and re-titled THE BUSHWHACKERS. He was 44 years old.

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Buck It Up

 

 (imdb)

BUCKTOWN-1975-Duke Johnson (Fred Williamson) goes to a small racist town in Alabama to sell the club his brother Ben owned before he was killed. Aretha (Pam Grier), a realtor friend of Ben's, becomes Duke's lover. The racist white police chief (Art Lund) and his two flunky deputies harass Duke, start a fight in a bar, then try to kill him. Duke calls his friend Roy (Thalmus Rasulala) who brings in some “muscle”. The chief says “Just remember we're the law. God is on our side”.Duke, Roy and their gangs proceed kill all the white bigoted lawmen and hold the chief hostage. Roy and his flunkies decide to take over as the law after they meet up with Roy's alcoholic friend (Bernie Hamiton). When they try to rape Aretha, Duke builds a tank and attacks them. He has a fisticuffs showdown with Roy in the finale. 

This is more blaxploitation hi-jinks from director Arthur Marks who made FRIDAY FOSTER with Pam Grier the same year. He made the much more enjoyable J.D.'S REVENGE the next year.

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Abar!

 

ABAR-1977-After Dr. Ken Kincade (J. Walter Smith), an African American scientist, and his family move to a white LA suburb, the whole bigoted neighborhood protests and dumps garbage on his lawn. They even kill his dog! The bigots are chased away by Abar (Tobar Mayo) and his motorcycle buddies of the BFU (Black Front of Unity). He introduces himself as “John Abar: Crusader”. They want Kincade to move back to “the black community” but he refuses. In his lab (there's a skull in the refrigerator) the doctor experiments on rabbits. After Abar insults the doctor, he lectures on ghettos and race. The Kincade's young son has a dream that Abar is black cowboy “Deadwood Dick” who kills a bunch of white racist cowboys. When the son is killed by a hit and run driver, the whites just stare and walk away. While Kincade works feverishly on his research, his wife leaves him and he collapses. After Abar watches a movie about Martin Luther King, Kincade (who sometimes sounds like he's imitating William Marshall) wants to inject Abar with a formula that could make him indestructible. Abar resists but eventually takes the formula. 

The doc regrets his decision almost immediately (Abar is nuts). Cops shoot an unarmed black man (that would never happen in real life....). Abar uses his newfound power to make the racist cops fight each other. Then he walks around the ghetto in a suit and makes winos drunk milk and a purse snatcher give back a purse. He also gives a woman the power to beat up a fat guy who slapped her and makes graffiti vandals clean up their mess. He turns a pastor's Cadillac into a horse and buggy and turns weed toking hookers and gambling pimps into college grads. When a black land developer says, “to hell with the blacks in the ghetto”, Abar turns his bowl of spaghetti into worms. To top it all off later the white woman who was the most hateful bigot admits she's actually black. Abar keeps walking.... 

This disaster of a movie has bad acting and direction, but some parts are funny. Star Mayo later had small roles in ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK and SCHIZOID. It's the only movie directed by Frank Packard, a white actor, who devised the plot with co-star J. Walter Smith (some say he was a pimp in real life). Also known as IN YOUR FACE and ABAR: THE FIRST BLACK SUPERMAN.

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"A Cat in a Strange Attic"

 

 (imdb)

I PASSED FOR WHITE-1960-Bernice Lee (Sonya Wilde) is light skinned African American who's frustrated and depressed over always being mistaken for white. She thinks it would be better if she just pretended to be white but her grandmother is against it. Nonetheless after being turned down for a job because she wrote "negro" on her application she decides to go to California and start a new life...as Leila Brownell, a white woman. She gets a better job and sends money home to her family. She doesn't include romance but that just happens when she falls in love with Rick Leyton (James Franciscus), an upper crust well to do white man. Of course she doesn't tell him about her "background" and their relationship is built on her lie after lie as she tries to stop from revealing her secret. Only her white girlfriend Sally (Pat Michon) knows the truth. It seems ok until hubby sees her talking to her black musician friend. Hubby punches the guy out as he's aghast. Later she becomes pregnant and worries what their child will look like. When she miscarries and asks if the baby was black, hubby thinks she was fooling around. Now suspected of being a floozie she leaves him and returns to her family without him never finding out her secret. 

This misguided low budget drama was the last picture made by director Fred Wilcox who's previous film (in 1956) had been FORBIDDEN PLANET.

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Mean Johnny

 

MEAN JOHNNY BARROWS-1975-Johnny Barrows (Fred Williamson) is dishonorably discharged from the army for hitting an officer. He arrives in LA and is mugged and beaten. Some racist cops arrest him thinking he's a drunk. A Sargent recognizes him as a college football player and war hero. After turning down a job offer from obvious gangster Mario Racconi (Stuart Whitman), he combs the city for a job but to no avail and sleeps in a doorway. Then he meets the Professor (Elliot Gould) and gets a job cleaning up in a gas station for the racist owner Richard (RG Armstrong). At a pow-wow mob boss Da Vince (Anthony Caruso) has his sons (Roddy McDowell and Mike Henry) kill Mario and his dad (Luther Adler) but Mario survives. When Richard cheats Johnny out of his pay Johnny tries to get it by force and is beaten up by white cops again and arrested. He gets out and Mario hires him to kill the Da Vince family. He kills both sons then has a terrible fight with an assassin who looks like Tiny Tim. Unfortunately Tony Da Vince and Mario's girlfriend Nancy (Jenny Sherman) were conspiring against both families so when Johnny tries to put the moves on her she shoots him but Johnny rigged a mine that she steps on and is blown up. 

This drawn out low budget crime drama is terrible with director/star Williamson  sleepwalking through most of the film and hardly involved in the mob family war till the last half hour.

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Gunn

BLACK GUNN-1972-Gunn (Jim Brown) is the owner of a slick club whose brother Scotty (Herbert Jefferson Jr.) is involved with the Black Action Group, a radical faction run by Seth (Bernie Casey). He also has some stolen mob ledgers. A mob boss (Stephen McNally) puts Russ Capeli (Martin Landau) who fronts as a used car dealer in charge of getting the ledgers back. Psycho thug Krigley (Bruce Glover) and cohort Rico (William Campbell) beat up parking attendant/informer Sam Greene (MLB pitcher Vidal Blue). A congressman Carl Adams (Gary Conway) can't get a table at Gunn's club and his bigoted friend Winman (Keefe Brasselle) starts a fight and gets thrown out. Adams associate Toni (Luciana Paluzzi; THE GREEN SLIME) can't persuade Gunn. After Scotty is killed Gunn wants his killer who turns out to be Krigley. Gunn beats him up. He goes after Capeli but is captured and tortured. Fortunately the BAG Bros come to the rescue. 

The crazed ending features a bloody shootout, a car chase, explosions and Capeli being set on fire. It ends with Gunn being arrested. Deacon Jones plays himself and Timothy Brown is also in it. This all star blaxploitation crime drama by England born Robert Hartford-Davies who before coming to the US had directed CORRUPTION with Peter Cushing. He followed up GUNN with another blaxploitation movie (also made in the US) THE TAKE with Billy Dee Williams.

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Teenage Gangs

THE REBEL BREED-1960-Police Lt. Brooks (Gerald Mohr) sends two rookie cops into a tough high school to infiltrate two gangs there. Frank Serano (Mark Damon) is posing as half Mexican-half African American and Don Walters (Douglas Hume) is a white guy. There's a black gang (the word Negro is used throughout the movie) called The Ebonies led by Satchel (Al Freeman Jr.), a Mexican gang The Caballeros and a white gang called The Royals. Almost immediately Frank gets beat up by The Cabs because Lola (Rita Moreno) the sister of gang leader Manuel (Richard Laurier) is assigned to a school project with him. Meanwhile she's making time with Jimmy (Don Eitner), a white guy (and Royal). Of course the real bad guy is Buck (Richard Rust), pot pushing leader of the racist white Royals who report to Mr. Elliot (Charles Franc). Manuel is a good gang leader though. He won't let his boys use grass. Later Buck accidentally kills Jimmy in a fight but makes it look like Manuel did it. He’s so bad he gives Satchel's little brother a joint to smoke. Many other things happen: Lola is pregnant, Buck finds out his slutty white girlfriend is actually black and the Royals paint Satchel white. Things come to a head at a pot party thrown by Buck that Lola joins trying to find evidence that Buck killed Jimmy. Frank infiltrates the party and Lola’s dad (Jay Novello) also shows up (he found out she’s preggers) to get harassed. Things really get out of hand when Muscles rats that Buck killed Jimmy and Frank and Don reveal their real jobs. Mr. Elliot appears with a gun. Thank god, the Cabs show up to help save the day. When Lt. Brooks gets there he lectures them (“When are you going to learn?!”). Love blooms for Lola and Frank. Everyone else is forgotten.

 I like the fact that THIS REBEL BREED lays most of the blame on the shoulders of the kids involved because they can't get along simply out of prejudice. The editing is a little sloppy but two directors are credited which could have something to do with it. The first Richard L. Bare had directed shorts and a few movies but was doing the TV western “Maverick” around the same time. He later directed all 166 episodes of the TV comedy “Green Acres”. One of his last films was the split screen slasher melodrama WICKED, WICKED. The second was William Rowland, a producer/director of low budget films (most of which I know nothing about...). Some mild “soft-core” sex scenes were added to the 1965 re-release of THE REBEL BREED and dubbed THE BLACK REBELS.

https://moviemeltdown.blogspot.com/2012/01/wicked-stuff.html

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Boss

BOSS NIGGER-1975-Two black bounty hunters Boss (Fred Williamson also the screenwriter) and Amos (D'Urville Martin) who hunt only white people become sheriff and deputy of a town and basically harass all the white people and give the mayor (RG Armstrong) a hard time. Later Williamson is kidnapped and tortured by Jed Clayton (William Smith) but Amos and Clara Mae (Carmen Haywood) rescue him. A doctor (Don “Red" Barry) patches him up. Later after Clayton kills Clara the townspeople help fight off Clayton's gang and Boss kills Clayton but he seems to be killed at the end (I think...??) 

Despite being directed by the great Jack Arnold (as noted previously he was doing lots of TV shows around this time), BN seems to tread a thin line between drama and parody. Many critics seem to think it's a set up. I personally think it's a disaster and the filmmakers had no idea where they were suppose to take the film.

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He's A Bad Mother...

SHAFT-1971-This kind of relic from the '70's is in a way the ultimate "black exploitation" film. In most movies the lead character has trouble with a racist individual or racism in general but here John Shaft "the private dick who's a sex machine for all the chicks" really has nothing but disdain for white people. In the mostly actionless plot Shaft (Richard Roundtree) refuses to help a white police captain fight crime but takes the case of finding the daughter of a ruthless Harlem gangster named Bumpy (Moses Gunn) kidnapped by the Mafia. He enlists some black militant drug dealers to assist him. He has sex with his girlfriend but when she says "I love you" to him over the phone he just replies "Yeah, I know" and hangs up and later has sex with a white prostitute. In the climax he leads the gang (dressed up like cooks, janitors and bellhops) in an assault on the building where the mob is holding the daughter. After the rescue and some fighting, Shaft just laughs as the police have to deal with the mess he's made.

Shaft acts cool and tough but there's too much talk. Perhaps Life magazine photographer turned director Gordon Parks wasn't sure which way to take the story: serious cultural drama or action packed crime drama. The best part to me was the on location scenes of NYC in the early '70's (especially the 42nd Street area).

 Author Ernest Tidyman (THE FRENCH CONNECTION) wrote the screenplay based on his novel. SHAFT spawned two sequels and a short lived TV series. The Isaac Hayes soundtrack won an Academy Award.

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