mandingo

Like many a schlock fan my age, Your Humble Reviewer was first intro­duced to Mandingo via a throw­away gag in Kentucky Fried Movie (the faux-trailer for Catholic High School Girls In Trouble, which the nar­ra­tor claims is “More offen­sive than Mandingo!”).  A quick lookup in Leonard Maltin’s T.V. Movies guide revealed that it had a “BOMB” rat­ing and had been given a scathing writeup that ended with the dra­matic excla­ma­tion “Stinko!”

Thus, it was easy to believe that Mandingo was just another well-funded Hollywood pot­boiler from the 1970’s, albeit one with racism and inter­ra­cial sex thrown in for exotic spice.  That is the rep­u­ta­tion it has always had and is the rep­u­ta­tion it con­tin­ues to have in many quar­ters.  And it’s a shame because this film deserves bet­ter.  Mandingo might have its roots in lurid mass-market pulp fic­tion but it is a well-made, seri­ous film with a deeply felt mes­sage about soci­etal hypocrisy.

Mandingo draws its plot from Kyle Onstott’s infa­mous novel about life at Falconhurst, a south­ern slave-breeding plan­ta­tion.  Warren Maxwell (James Mason) is its aging owner, who is try­ing to ensure his busi­ness and fam­ily will con­tinue on.  His son, Hammond (Perry King), does his best to help his father by find­ing him a prize slave from the Mandingo tribe named Mede (boxer Ken Norton) to use as a stud and also by enter­ing into an arranged mar­riage with his cousin, Blanche (Susan George).  However, per­sonal pas­sions com­pli­cate things when Hammond becomes emo­tion­ally attached to his “bed wench” slave Ellen (Brenda Sykes) and a jeal­ous Blanche turns her eyes to Mede as she con­tem­plates her own frus­trated desires.

It’s a per­fect setup for lurid pulp thrills and Mandingo never shies away from the graphic nature of its con­tent: there is inter­ra­cial sex, full-frontal nudity from both men and women, the depic­tion of viciously racist atti­tudes and a ton of bloody vio­lence that includes whip­pings, hang­ings, shoot­ings and an intensely bru­tal bare-knuckle fight.  That said, Mandingo the film never seems to revel in its con­tent the way Mandingo the novel does: the pileup of lurid con­tent is more unnerv­ing than it is exciting.

The film achieves this off-kilter feel because direc­tor Richard Fleischer presents these ele­ments in a straight-forward, unadorned style that forces the viewer to con­tem­plate their reac­tions to what they are wit­ness­ing with­out directly telling them how to feel.  Racism is pre­sented in a matter-of-fact way and, once the shock wears off, the casual pre­sen­ta­tion allows the viewer to see how it cor­rodes its prac­ti­tion­ers from within while sti­fling the lives of its vic­tims. This approach allows Mandingo to com­mu­ni­cate the ugli­ness of racism with­out reduc­ing the film to a lecture.

Mandingo also gives visual cues about its the­matic con­tent in a very styl­ized way.  With the help of Richard Kline’s moody, art­ful cin­e­matog­ra­phy, Fleischer sub­tly rein­forces the ugli­ness of the time by allow­ing the audi­ence to see the ugli­ness beneath the slave own­ers’ attempts at appear­ing civ­i­lized.  The Hammonds’ world looks aging and decayed, an effec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion of their lifestyle’s cor­rupt­ing effects.

Racism isn’t the film’s only theme: screen­writer Norman Wexler spe­cial­ized in writ­ing films about char­ac­ters strug­gling with the sti­fling atti­tudes of the world they lived in — films like Joe, Serpico and Saturday Night Fever — and he works that theme in here to oft-devastating effect. Hammond’s poten­tial for kind­ness is snuffed out by his father’s dom­i­na­tion of his life, Blanche’s desire to love is twisted into resent­ful cru­elty because of Hammond’s sex­ist treat­ment and the slave char­ac­ters either become enraged or numb them­selves over their sta­tus as non-humans.

Finally, and most impor­tantly, the per­for­mances drive the film’s com­plex themes home.  King gives Hammond the emo­tional depth needed to achieve the mix­ture of sym­pa­thy and revul­sion he ulti­mately inspires.  George’s work is often writ­ten off as histri­onic but it suits her char­ac­ter per­fectly, exter­nal­iz­ing the inten­sity of her bottled-up pas­sion and anger.  As expected, Mason is an old pro, mak­ing Warren an oddly like­able sym­bol of well-meaning cor­rup­tion.  Equally note­wor­thy are Brenda Sykes, who deliv­ers a mov­ing mono­logue about how she wants her unborn child to be free, and Ji-Tu Cumbuka’s fiery turn as a rebel­lious slave who pays for his free spirit.   Even the oft-criticized Norton does well, com­mu­ni­cat­ing his character’s fear­ful iner­tia in a raw but affect­ing way.

In short, Mandingo is every bit as shock­ing as its rep­u­ta­tion sug­gests — but it’s also far more intel­li­gent and art­ful than you’d expect.  It might speak the lan­guage of schlock but it uses it a pointed and dev­as­tat­ing effect.