The River Niger (1976)

          Offering a potent alternative to the stereotypical content in blaxploitation films, a handful of serious dramas with primarily African-American casts were released in the ’70s, including Black Girl (1972), Claudine (1974), and this adaptation of a Tony-winning play by Joseph A. Walker. Originally presented in New York by the progressive Negro Ensemble Company, The River Niger is intense and political but loaded with so many hot-button signifiers that, seen today, it seems a bit more like a highlight reel of the Black Power movement than a proper drama. Walker crams in Afrocentrism, Black Panther-style militarized activism, the resentment felt by black Vietnam veterans, the ravages of alcoholism among urban African-Americans, and myriad other incendiary topics. Thus, even though the story pulls these threads together, more or less, by focusing on the troubles that plague a single black family, The River Niger feels episodic and pretentious, as if Walker felt compelled to address every single subject that was important to African-Americans during the early ’70s.

          In the broadest stokes, the movie depicts what happens the week that Vietnam vet Jeff Williams (Glynn Turman) comes home from the war to his family in Los Angeles. Jeff’s father, Jonny (James Earl Jones), is a drunk who dabbles in writing poetry; Jeff’s mother, Mattie (Cicely Tyson), is a strong matriarch trying to prevent her loved ones from learning she has cancer; and Jeff’s friend, Big Moe Hayes (Roger E. Mosley), is a militant caught up in an ongoing hassle with the LAPD. Suffice to say, tensions are as plentiful as plotlines. Combined with narrative-flow problems in the screen version (also written by Walker), this kitchen-sink approach to dramaturgy makes The River Niger a tough film to slog through. Worst among the narrative-flow problems is Walker’s inability to command pacing and tone; the movie jumps abruptly from intense scenes to light ones, and Walker misses myriad opportunities to group similar scenes together and/or use cross-cutting to create dramatic counterpoint. Director Krishna Shah seems equally adrift, occasionally using interesting devices—flash cuts of African masks, a striking camera angle looking over the barrel of a gun—without ever locking into a consistent style.

          Even the acting, by a cast of normally reliable performers, is inconsistent. Jones has many beautiful moments, especially when reciting poetry, but his belligerent-drunk bits get tiresome. Tyson, perpetually and rightly cast as personifications of principle, is formidable but humorless. Turman, at his best when loosest, is tight in the extreme, delivering rigid body language and stilted line deliveries. Even the always-interesting Louis Gossett Jr. is merely okay, playing the family’s doctor with a campy Jamaican accent. Holding the film together, to some degree, is a funk/R&B score by one of the quintessential ’70s bands, War, though none of their melodies connect as strongly as their loping grooves.

The River Niger: FUNKY

J.D.’s Revenge (1976)

          An imaginative mash-up of blaxploitation and horror, this New Orleans-set thriller concerns a mild-mannered law student who gets possessed by the spirit of a 1940s crook intent on payback against a murderous hoodlum. Featuring a fair amount of visual panache—think sepia-colored flashbacks and tricky mirror shots during which the protagonist sees another face instead of his own reflection—J.D.’s Revenge is consistently entertaining even though the storyline is alternately murky and overwrought. Much of the film’s potency stems from its nasty depiction of the hero’s behavior while possessed—the hero beats up a senior, slaps around and rapes his girlfriend, and nearly murders a dude by slashing him repeatedly with a straight razor. Whatever its faults, J.D.’s Revenge can’t be accused of timidity.

          Glynn Turman, the amiable star of Cooley High (1975), plays Isaac, an unassuming guy who’s stressed out from his studies but happily involved with an understanding girlfriend, Christella (Joan Pringle). One evening, Isaac and Christella attend a hypnosis show at a Bourbon Street club. While he’s hypnotized, Isaac is invaded by the spirit of J.D. Walker (David McKnight), a criminal who died violently. As the movie progresses, Isaac suffers repeated episodes during which J.D. overtakes Isaac’s body, causing Isaac to act with uncharacteristic savagery. Christella gets the worst of it, receiving two nasty beatings during sexual assaults. Furthermore, Isaac—while under J.D.’s control—tracks down the two men who were present when J.D. died. J.D.’s murderer is a gangster named Theotis Bliss (Fred Pinkard), and that man’s brother is a gangster-turned-evangelist named Rev. Elijah Bliss (Louis Gossett, Jr.). The plot gets unnecessarily complicated whenever the Bliss family is involved, but repeated flashbacks to the awful moment when both J.D. and his sister were murdered underscore why J.D. is so hungry for revenge.
          Screenwriter Jaison Starkes loses the thread of the story at regular intervals, relying on such inexplicable contrivances as J.D.’s spirit wasting time on adventures before tracking down his enemies; additionally, it’s hard to accept the idea that Isaac escapes police capture despite committing multiple heinous acts. Nonetheless, if one can ignore the picture’s myriad logical lapses, J.D.’s Revenge offers plenty of lurid thrills. The image of slight Turman strutting around in 1940s gangster garb while menacing people with his straight razor is unnerving, and the rape scenes are horrific. Plus, even though most of the film’s performances are perfunctory, Gossett is electric in all of his scenes, whether he’s frenetically testifying through church sermons or channeling anguish during the finale.

J.D.’s Revenge: FUNKY

The White Dawn (1974)

          With its colorful cast and impressive location photography—to say nothing of the admirable use of indigenous actors and language—The White Dawn should be engrossing. Set in the late 19th century, the story depicts what happens when three American whalers become stranded in Eskimo country, first assimilating into the local culture and then clashing with their Native hosts. The whalers are played by Timothy Bottoms, Louis Gossett Jr., and Warren Oates, all of whom are interesting actors, and director Philip Kaufman—helming only his second big-budget feature—displays his signature interest in sociopolitical subtleties. Yet not even Kaufman’s ethnographic approach can enliven the dull and unmemorable storyline, which unfolds in a predictable way and suffers from a paucity of significant events. Very little about The White Dawn lingers in the memory except for a general wintry vibe, because while the cinematography is tough and vivid—director of photography Michael Chapman operates way outside his usual New York milieu, to impressive effect—the narrative lacks surprises.

          Producer Martin Ransohoff, who also wrote the underlying adaptation of the James Houston novel upon which the film is based, took a bold route by featuring extensive scenes of Inuit dialogue, and the fact that most of the cast comprises Eskimo performers gives The White Dawn authenticity other adventure pictures set in the Great White North lack. Yet one longs for a storyline as virile as those found in, say, the tales of Jack London. That said, it’s moderately diverting to watch vignettes of the white characters reacting to the strangeness of life in the Arctic Circle—as when they’re awoken by water from the melting ceiling of their igloo—and the picture features a few informative scenes showing Eskimo rituals. The White Dawn isn’t a bad film, of course, because it’s using the white characters as a means of exposing viewers to a rarely seen world, but the tone runs so close to that of a drably educational documentary that Ransohoff might have been better off just ditching the fictional contrivance altogether.

The White Dawn: FUNKY

Skin Game (1971)

          Even in the changing times of the post-Civil Rights era, the prospect of a Hollywood comedy about slavery would seem to promise something wildly offensive, and yet the James Garner-Louis Gossett Jr. romp Skin Game is not only thoroughly enjoyable but, in its irreverent way, respectful. The story, by Richard Alan Simmons, is clever and nervy. In the pre-Civil War South, white hustler Quincy Drew (Garner) travels from town to town “selling” his friend Jason (Gossett), a free man posing as a slave. Exploiting the arrogance of slave owners, they realize nobody expects Jason to slip away after he’s been purchased, so they divide their earnings each time they bilk another rube. The movie finds entertaining ways to address nearly every possibility suggested by this scheme—nefarious types figure out what’s happening and try to hustle the hustlers; Jason ends up getting bought by someone who makes easy escape impossible; Quincy ends up on the receiving end of a bullwhip, making him understand the dangers Jason faces; and so on.

          Even though the picture apparently had some rockiness behind the camera (two directors, a screenwriter working under an alias), Skin Game unfolds confidently, zooming along at a steady pace and revealing witty surprises at nearly every turn. It’s true that some of the twists are a bit too convenient (Jason’s bonding with a group of newly arrived African slaves is a stretch), but the resourcefulness with which the filmmakers complicate the heroes’ lives is impressive. The result is a breezy “another fine mess you’ve gotten us into” buddy comedy, with Garner at the apex of his rascally charm and Gossett mixing lightness into his customarily intense screen persona. Their bickering scenes are thoroughly amusing, and the depth of friendship the story conveys is touching.

          The movie provides love interests for both characters, appropriately a brazen grifter (Susan Clark) for Quincy and a beautiful house slave (Brenda Sykes) for Jason. (Clark, a solid player in a variety of ’70s movies, does some of her best work here, though she’s not in Garner’s league.) However, even with Simmons’ ingenious story and the winning performances by Garner and Gossett, the real star of the show is screenwriter Peter Stone, credited as Pierre Marton. The light-comedy master behind Charade (1963) and Father Goose (1964), Stone fills Skin Game with effervescent dialogue, like this quip from Garner after Clark’s sticky-fingered character offers to safeguard a bankroll: “It’s not you I don’t trust, it’s the money—it begins to act strangely whenever it’s in your possession.”
          FYI, the 1974 TV movie Sidekicks represented a failed attempt to turn Skin Game into a series; Larry Hagman took over the Quincy Drew role while Gossett reprised his Jason character. (Skin Game available at WarnerArchive.com)

Skin Game: GROOVY

The Deep (1977)

          Few ’70s blockbusters had the far-reaching impact of Jaws (1975), which spawned not only countless substandard imitators but also a boom period for nearly everyone involved in the original picture. Both phenomena manifested in The Deep, a glossy thriller about oceanic peril based on a novel by the author of Jaws, Peter Benchley. With the additional exception of actor Robert Shaw’s participation, however, the similarities pretty much end there. Whereas Jaws is a robust adventure film with underwater horror, The Deep is a comparatively limp crime picture with underwater boredom. The movie has many noteworthy elements, all of which cheerfully pander to the public’s appetite for lurid sensation, but it’s also a 123-minute slog filled with meandering scenes that go on seemingly forever.

          The story begins when two young Americans who are vacationing in Bermuda discover a shipwreck during a scuba dive in the waters off the island. An artifact they recover catches the attention of a crusty deep-sea salvage expert (Robert Shaw) and a vicious drug dealer (Louis Gossett Jr.), because it turns out the shipwreck is filled with vials containing enough morphine to produce a huge amount of heroin. Accordingly, most of the picture comprises repeated dives to gather booty from the wreck, plus on-shore confrontations like the bit in which the Americans drive scooters while being chased by a truckload of bad guys. The thrills in The Deep are shameless, right down to the tepid running gag about a gigantic killer eel who lurks somewhere inside the shipwreck, and in fact the movie’s best-known element is its tackiest: Voluptuous costar Jacqueline Bisset’s long dive at the beginning of the movie certified her sex-symbol status because she spends the whole sequence in a nearly transparent white T-shirt.

         For good or ill, that sequence is indicative of The Deep’s ample lowbrow appeal. In the same vein, leading man Nick Nolte was at the apex of his handsomeness and youthful intensity, so he’s enjoyable even when he’s chewing the scenery. Shaw, basically delivering a toned-down version of his Jaws performance, is thoroughly entertaining even though he’s saddled with trite material. Gossett is effective as a crook hiding a killer’s heart behind a winning smile, and Eli Wallach adds campy flavor as the old sea dog who helps the heroes on their dives. The Deep falls apart toward the end, resorting to all sorts of tacky fake-outs to ensure a highly improbable happy ending, and fans expecting sea-critter action on the order of Jaws will be disappointed. Still, with its whatever-works mishmash of brazen titillation and luxurious underwater photography, The Deep is enjoyably shallow.

The Deep: FUNKY