The Legend of Nigger Charley (1972) & The Soul of Nigger Charley (1973)

          If you watch enough Fred Williamson movies, you begin to forget how potent he was in his prime, simply because so many of the pictures that he produced and/or directed himself are unspeakably bad. That’s the context for my experience of The Legend of Nigger Charley, a decent B-picture likely consigned to obscurity because of its title. As directed by Martin Goldman, the film has a familiar storyline and a serviceable vibe, so it neither breaks new ground nor soars with artistry. That said, it has a bit of an edge, because the protagonist is a slave who becomes a folk hero by killing the white man who callously destroyed the slave’s emancipation papers. Circumstances transform the slave into a gunslinger, and he inspires awe from frontier types who’ve never seen a black man control of his own destiny.

          The picture opens in Africa, with punchy black-and-white scenes showing a baby and his family being ripped from their ancestral home amid a flurry of bloodshed. Cut to twentysomething years later, and the baby has grown into Charley (Williamson), a muscular blacksmith working on a Southern plantation. The plantation’s dying master offers to grant his favorite slave, Theo (Gertrude Jeannette), her freedom, but she asks for the favor to be given to her son, Charley, instead. Before Charley can leave, he gets into a quarrel with the master’s heir, leading to the man’s death. That’s how Charley becomes a fugitive, and he takes his friend, house slave Toby (D’Urville Martin), with him. Eventually, their gang grows in size and stature until they’re hired by farmers to protect them from an evil preacher who runs a protection racket.

          Not only does the movie’s narrative get fuzzy soon after Charley leaves the plantation—every act has a new villain, and the story never pays off threads from the vibrant opening scenes—but the wandering-avenger theme is trite. By the end of the picture, the Charley character has become so generic he could be played by, say, Lee Van Cleef. Yet every so often, the folks behind The Legend of Nigger Charley remember what makes this material unique, so, for instance, there’s a terrific scene with an old eccentric named Shadow (Thomas Anderson), who storms into a bar where Charley’s gang is under siege just so he can say he’s seen everything.

          The Soul of Nigger Charley has a less episodic script than the first picture, and it benefits from polished elements including Don Costa’s robust orchestral score. Alas, the sequel gets bogged down in routine Western-movie tropes. Charley and Toby (again played by Williamson and Martin) stumble across a town where a slaughter was committed by vicious ex-solider Colonel Blanchard (Kevin Hagen) and his criminal gang. Later, when Charley and Toby meet survivors of Blanchard’s racially driven crime spree, Charley and Toby form an all-black militia and conspire to hit Blanchard where it hurts—by beating him to the train Blanchard plans to rob of $100,000 in gold.

          The first part of the picture, during which Charley builds a surrogate family of ex-slaves trying to get by in a white world, anticipates plot devices later used by Clint Eastwood in The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976). Yet once The Soul of Nigger Charley shifts into heist mode, the lead character morphs from a righteous crusader to a run-of-the-mill outlaw. (Larry G. Spangler, who produced and co-wrote both Nigger Charley pictures but only directed the sequel, was truly gifted at squandering the franchise’s potential.) Notwithstanding its flaws, The Soul of Nigger Charley is enjoyable enough to watch because it hits all the expected notes. Williamson flexes and kills and smirks, leading lady Denise Nicholas complements her sex appeal with gravitas, and the action scenes have scope.

          Two last items worth mentioning: Williamson’s similarly titled 1975 flick Boss Nigger is unrelated to this films, and all three Williamson pictures with n-word monikers were likely among the inspirations for Quentin Tarantino’s slave-turned-gunslinger hit Django Unchained (2012).

The Legend of Nigger Charley: FUNKY

The Soul of Nigger Charley: FUNKY

Disco 9000 (1976)

“He’s got a plan that makes him king of boogie-land.” Or so we’re told about protagonist Fass Black in the title song of Disco 9000. Sometimes marketed under the title Fass Black, this tedious blaxploitation flick explores the life of an entrepreneur who owns a successful discotheque on the Sunset Strip, as well as a record label that pumps out a steady stream of dancefloor hits. The anemic plot has a crime hook, because out-of-town gangsters try to muscle into the LA market by intimidating Fass into playing records from mob-owned labels at his club, the top influencer in the SoCal disco scene. Meanwhile, Fass juggles relationships with his wife, his mistress, and various other women. Yes, it’s another spin on the “black kingpin” trope so common to blaxploitation flicks, and neither director D’Urville Martin (better known as an actor) nor writer Roland S. Jefferson M.D. (whose medical credential appears onscreen) generates much heat. The narrative is plodding and predictable, with large chunks of screen time devoted to unimaginatively filmed dance performances. Worse, the only character with any flair is Fass’ pugnacious sidekick, Midget (played by famed dancer Harold Nicholas). Considering the colorful milieu of a nightclub, D’Urville’s lack of cinematic dynamism is galling. Viewers are shown the same drab cutaways of neon lights again and again, and the soundtrack is just as repetitive—after watching Disco 9000, you’ll need a long reprieve from hearing Johnnie Taylor’s slinky hit “Disco Lady,” which is featured way too many times. Oh, and there’s a reason why leading man John Poole’s career never caught fire after he played Fass Black. “Bland” is too generous a word for describing his screen presence. He delivers a performance as stiff and unoriginal as the movie surrounding him.

Disco 9000: LAME

The Final Comedown (1972)

Social activism isn’t the first thing that springs to mind upon hearing the name Billy Dee Williams, but amid the many escapist movies and TV shows on his résumé are a handful of projects about racially charged issues. For instance, Williams coproduced and starred in The Final Comedown, a violent drama about a black-power revolutionary. Suffering from inconsistent acting, a meager budget, and sloppy storytelling, the movie doesn’t even remotely work. Nonetheless, it’s fair to say the filmmakers’ hearts were in the right place, politically speaking, because writer-director Oscar Williams constructs the narrative as an allegory expressing rage at the mistreatment of blacks in ’70s America. Alas, The Final Comedown doesn’t do justice to the subject matter; powerful films of the same era, including Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971) and The Spook Who Sat by the Door (1973), tackled similar material much more effectively. The Final Comedown begins with a disjoined montage juxtaposing a traumatic childhood experience, a confusingly staged shootout between police and revolutionaries, and random vignettes of prejudice and racism. The idea is to explain, in the course of a few minutes, how Johnny Johnson (Williams) was radicalized. At the end of the montage, Johnny gets hit with a bullet. Then, for the remainder of the movie, The Final Comedown cuts back and forth between Johnny’s struggle to survive his wound and semi-chronological flashbacks explaining the events leading to the shootout. The mosaic approach makes The Final Comedown hard to follow, a problem exacerbated by the film’s skimpy production values. (The filmmakers clearly envisioned an apocalyptic backdrop of streets filled with combat, but all they really show is a contained skirmish.) Supporting characters are underdeveloped, and the filmmakers occasionally undercut the overall serious tone by including such blaxploitation-style flourishes as a tediously overlong sex scene. Plus, subtlety is left far behind whenever the filmmakers try to hit a political note: “The system is destroying us,” Williams explains at one point, “so we have to fight, and some of us have got to die.” Or, as costar D’Urville Martin says succinctly in another scene: “White man—ain’t you a bitch with your shit.”

The Final Comedown: LAME

Five on the Black Hand Side (1973)

          Although the success of the blaxploitation genre created tremendous employment opportunities for African-American actors (and filmmakers), the genre propagated so many stereotypes that several enterprising producers recognized opportunities for counterprogramming. For example, the domestic comedy Five on the Black Hand Side takes a lighthearted look at the tensions within a middle-class black family in Los Angeles. Not a dealer or pimp is in sight, and there’s nary a hint of inner-city blight or rampant poverty. Five on the Black Hand Side explores the affluent (or at least comfortable) side of American black life circa the early ’70s. Adapted by Charlie L. Russell from his play of the same name—without any distracting traces of its stage origins remaining—the picture explores the novel premise of a family practicing civil disobedience against their patriarch to force positive change.

          Said patriarch is John Henry Brooks (Leonard Jackson), a self-made success who runs his household like an empire. “Mr. Brooks,” as he insists on being called, dresses in three-piece suits, scorns the way his adult children embrace Afrocentrism, and treats his wife like a personal assistant instead of a spouse. The joke is that instead of being a captain of industry, Mr. Brooks is merely the proprietor of a neighborhood barbershop—respectable, no question, but hardly grandiose. When the story begins, Mr. Brooks’ overbearing leadership style has alienated nearly all of his relatives. His youngest son, Gideon (Glynn Turman), has moved out of the family apartment to live on a rooftop. His oldest son, Booker T. (D’Urville Martin), has left the house entirely. His daughter, Gail (Bonnie Banfield), has raised Mr. Brooks’ ire by insisting on an African-style wedding to her fiancé. And Mrs. Brooks (Clarice Taylor) breaks down in tears every day because her husband is so cold and imperious.

          As the story progresses, Mrs. Brooks’ children and friends encourage her to revolt, so she stages protests and walkouts, insisting Mr. Brooks sign a list of demands. Meanwhile, Mr. Brooks finds support among his male buddies, who encourage him to stand his ground. Five on the Black Hand Side moves along at a leisurely pace, lingering on long scenes that depict the texture of everyday life in the Brooks’ neighborhood—Mr. Brooks and his pals tell boastful stories in the barbershop, while Mrs. Brooks and her friends gossip in the beauty parlor. And in one of the movie’s best scenes, Booker T. and Gideon tussle over the thorny issues of assimilation and miscegenation—Black Power advocate Gideon calls Booker T. a traitor to the race because Booker T. has a white girlfriend. The way that Russell and director Oscar Williams jam signifiers and topics into the story gives Five on the Black Hand Side heft, even though the picture is largely designed as light entertainment. And entertaining it is, thanks to charming performances and spirited writing.

Five on the Black Hand Side: GROOVY

Dolemite (1975) & The Human Tornado (1976)

          Scabrous comedian Rudy Ray Moore made his big-screen debut as the producer, star, and cowriter of the hellaciously bad blaxploitation romp Dolemite. The title character is a pimp/entertainer/vigilante who leads a squad of martial arts-trained prostitutes on a righteous crusade against an underworld opponent. The movie is exactly as insipid as its premise, with the tawdry nature of the project exacerbated by disjointed storytelling and terrible acting. Further, Dolemite awkwardly ricochets between action, comedy, sex, and violence. Despite having the right ingredients for a proper blaxploitation joint, Moore and his collaborators—including director/costar D’Urville Martin—contribute such amateurish work that watching Dolemite is a painful chore. For instance, the movie begins with Dolemite (Moore) getting released from prison in order to function as an undercover operative for law-enforcement authorities. Yet he’s met at the prison gate by a carload of hookers, and moments later, Dolemite grabs a machine gun from his car and cheerfully murders several would-be assailants. Huh?

          To be fair, low-rent blaxploitation pictures were never big on logic, since the fun of such movies stems from kitschy style and lurid thrills. Nonetheless, Dolemite is so stunningly stupid that it’s hard to go along for the ride. Consider these inane lines of dialogue: “Dolemite is my name, and fuckin’ up motherfuckers is my game”; “Man, move over and let me pass ’fore they have to be pullin’ these Hush Puppies out your motherfuckin’ ass!” There’s a certain traffic-accident fascination to be had in watching the crude and unfunny Moore, who seems as if he was suffering from a concussion during filming. Still, determining exactly what audiences found charming about the man and his ridiculous onscreen alter ego is challenging.

          When Dolemite returned a year later in The Human Tornado, Moore truly let his freak flag fly. Disjointed, perverse, and surreal, The Human Tornado is a blaxploitation movie on acid. Worse, it seems as if Moore intended for the movie to be a comedy. The plot has something to do with Dolemite fleeing the south after getting caught in bed with a white woman who paid him for sex, because her husband is a crazed redneck sheriff. Dolemite decamps to Los Angeles, where he helps a friend who’s being shaken down by the mob. (Never mind that the friend runs a prostitution ring.)

          In addition to profane dialogue and tragic ’70s fashions (all those jumpsuits!), The Human Tornado features several genuinely bizarre scenes. Half-naked hookers are tortured by a woman wearing grotesque wicked-witch makeup straight out of H.R. Pufnstuf. Dolemite services a woman with such intensity that he literally causes the house around them to disintegrate. (He’s a human tornado, get it?) In another bedroom scene, (offscreen) cunnilingus is intercut with Dolemite eating chicken. Oh, and after Dolemite jumps off a steep cliff, the movie freezes, the text “instant replay” appears on screen, and Moore’s voice intones: “Some of y’all don’t believe I jumped, so watch this good shit!” Then the jump replays. Oy. Need we mention the dream sequence in which naked studs emerge from toy boxes and then ride a slide into a sex-crazed woman’s embrace?

          And since cataloguing the oddities of a Rudy Ray Moore joint wouldn’t be complete without citing at least one choice line of dialogue, consider this sweet remark Dolemite makes to a lover: “All right, let’s get this shit over—I ain’t got all day.” Romance, thy name is Dolemite. In addition to making other projects, Moore periodically returned to the Dolemite character, starring in Shaolin Dolemite (1999) and The Return of Dolemite (2002), before passing away in 2008.

Dolemite: LAME

The Human Tornado: FREAKY

Sheba, Baby (1975)

Produced at the tail end of the blaxploitation boom—and in the waning days of leading lady Pam Grier’s initial popularity—this lackluster action flick is quite a comedown after the funky heights of previous Grier joints including Coffy (1973) and Foxy Brown (1974). Wham-Bam-Thank-You-Pam plays Sheba Shayne, a Chicago-based private investigator who returns to her hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, when she gets word that her dad is being hassled by local gangsters. Before long, Sheba’s dad falls victim to gun-toting thugs, so Sheba—with a little help from her pop’s business partner, Brick Williams (Austin Stoker)—unloads you-messed-with-the-wrong-mama vengeance on crime boss Pilot (D’Urville Martin) and his associates. Grier spends Sheba, Baby talking tough while looking great (her knockout figure is on ample display in costumes like the wetsuit she wears for the movie’s last half-hour), but Sheba, Baby is unmistakably second-rate. The dialogue is trite, the production values are mediocre, and the supporting performances are awful. Even the requisite funk/soul soundtrack, often a saving grace for shaky blaxploitation movies, is uninspired. Grier’s nomrally forceful acting falls victim to the general crappiness, because she often seems as if she’s delivering lines she’s just learned—it almost feels as if the movie comprises rehearsals instead of takes. Director/co-writer William Girdler was far more comfortable with in the horror genre, and after making this picture, he banged out a trio of demented creature features (from the campy 1976 gorefest Grizzly to the wigged-out 1978 supernatural flick The Manitou). For Sheba, Baby, he’s unable to conjure the needed vibe of frenetic violence and urban grime—the picture moves too slowly, the textures all feel phony—and it doesn’t help that Sheba, Baby is rated PG instead of R. Really, what’s the point of trafficking in a sleazy genre if not to present sleaze?

Sheba, Baby: LAME

Boss Nigger (1975)

Blaxploitation stalwart Fred Williamson was well on the way to becoming a bad-movie auteur by the time he wrote, produced, and starred in this brazenly titled Western, so Boss Nigger features his signature elements of a take-no-guff protagonist and substandard storytelling—in Williamson’s cinematic world, attitude is everything and quality is a needless luxury. Presumably conceived as a dramatic riff on the previous year’s comedy blockbuster Blazing Saddles, this blaxploitation joint employs the same narrative contrivance as the earlier film—a black man becomes sheriff of a frontier town, much to the chagrin of the white locals. However, instead of being installed in the job through political chicanery, as in Blazing Saddles, Boss (Williamson) seizes the vacant sheriff’s position in order to hunt down a rival—and also to tilt the race-relations scales in favor of African-Americans. “Sorry, we can’t stay for supper,” Boss says in a moment indicative of the film’s obviousness, “but we got us mo’ whiteys to catch.” Much of the picture comprises uninspired scenes of Boss and his comic-relief sidekick, Amos (D’Urville Martin), humiliating white people while they pursue a criminal named Jed Clayton (William Smith), a standard-issue Western villain who kills for fun and profit. All of this should be diverting in a trashy sort of way, but the movie is too enervated to enjoy. Director Jack Arnold, a veteran whose career stretches back to sci-fi classics including The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1955), seems utterly disinterested in his work (Can you blame him?), and the generic funk score clashes with Arnold’s old-fashioned visuals. Plus, Williamson’s script lacks both restraint and taste—during the climax, for instance, Williamson features Boss getting crucified by the bad guys.

Boss Nigger: LAME