Saturday, September 3, 2016

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

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