Mandingo *** (1975, James Mason, Susan George, Perry King, Richard Ward, Brenda Sykes, Ken Norton) – Classic Movie Review 8588

James Mason is surprisingly cast and equally surprisingly successful as Warren Maxwell, a rotten, racist Southern plantation owner, in director Richard Fleischer’s steamy and provocative 1840s-set Louisiana melodrama Mandingo from 1975.

Maxwell arranges a marriage between his handsome son Hammond (Perry King) and his cousin Blanche (Susan George), the sexy daughter of a neighbouring plantation owner. Picking up his new bride, Hammond acquires two new slaves – the shy, beautiful Ellen (Brenda Sykes) and Mede (Ken Norton), the highly-priced Mandingo of Sudanese ancestry, who soon learns to fight back when Maxwell trains him to be a bare-knuckle fighter. The marriage is doomed from the wedding night, when Hammond finds that his bride is not a virgin and visits a brothel in a fury.

Director Fleischer boldly tackles sadism and sexuality in the context of slavery head-on in a Southern Gothic thriller that became controversial when some audiences found it racist and/ or cheap and trashy with its salacious content.

Mandingo is performed with all the stops out and atmospherically filmed, while Fleischer knows what he is doing with his handling of this strange sexual psychology.

The screenplay by Norman Wexler is based on a popular novel by Kyle Onstott (whose Drum has also been filmed) and of the play based on it by Jack Kirkland.

Muddy Waters sings ‘Born in this Time’.

It is 1978 World Boxing Council heavyweight champion Ken Norton (1943–2013)’s film début in a credited role after two brief uncredited appearances. He also played Drum in the follow-up film Drum (1976).

It is shot in Technicolor by Richard H Kline, cinematographer on Camelot, Body Heat and the 1976 King Kong, who died at 91 on 7 August 2018. He worked with director Robert Wise on The Andromeda Strain (1971) and Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) and partnered with Richard Fleischer on The Boston Strangler (1968), Soylent Green (1973), The Don Is Dead (1973), Mr Majestyk (1974) and Mandingo.

Also in the cast are Lillian Hayman, Roy Poole, Ji-Tu Cumbuka, Paul Benedict, Ben Masters, Ray Spruell, Louis Turenne, Duane Allen, Earl Maynard, Beatrice Winde, Debbie Morgan, Irene Tedrow, Reda Wyatt, Simon McQueen, Evelyn Hendrickson, Stanley Reyes, John Barber, Durwyn Robinson, Kerwin Robinson, Deborah Ann Young, Debra Blackwell, Kuumba and Stocker Fontelieu.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8588

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