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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