Mandingo

Unflinching Southern gothic melodrama, gorgeously filmed with a sweaty, grotesque atmosphere oozing from each frame. Far more than just a "camp classic", this is an anti-Gone with the Wind that isn't afraid to stare the ridiculousness of slavery and racist hysteria straight in the face.

This is not a good/bad movie, this is a genuinely good, intelligent, and cynical deconstruction of the antebellum south. It takes apart every notion of civility and honor among the "gentlemen" and "belles."

With it's mesmerizing gothic atmosphere, masterfully shot with incredibly effective sets, costumes and decors, appropriate lingo which helps with immersion, and great casting, the film is a magnetic thrill of an experience from start to finish. The characters are alive and broken, their interactions and character developments deep in a fundamentally literary sense. My criticism is about the hyperbolized, way out of reality, depiction of racism, and the absurd last scene which felt uncalibrated.

This is basically a big budget exploitation movie about life on a slave plantation in the deep south before the civil war. There's a bunch of soap opera family drama and sexy interracial love triangles, in addition to tons of nudity, torture, and violence. Susan George is excellent as the sweet but poisonous southern belle, and veteran British actor James Mason plays the evil plantation owner.

Viewed January 21, 2022. t's frankly shocking that a film this sharp and grimy came from an old Hollywood craftsman like Richard Fleischer (not to mention that it stars an old Hollywood legend like James Mason) - even taking into account some of Fleischer's other rich and provocative later works, Mandingo pushes the bounds of good taste in the name of righteous anger in a way that's both deeply unsettling and impressive.

The story is a superb dissection of the effects of a racist system both on the ostensible victims and those in charge. However, it seems excessively distilled, both narratively and cinematically, and Susan George just isn't up to the job. I suspect that it is trapped by a desire to shock the audience of the 1970s, paradoxically.

This films main use today is a gauge on how conservative Hollywood has become 40 years on. The calibre of films aren't dropping but the exploratory nature of the ones allowed a mainstream budget are being roped in, our taste of art is being selected for us which is alarming. Although anchored by bleak, boring & at times aimless script (learning to read sequence) the exploitation seeps through to lace Mandingo with a sometimes extreme replica of the eras race relations. Black foot pillow, really?

58.500

I'm not sure why this film has such a bad reputation. And I really can't fathom Roger Ebert's initial apoplectic fit over it when it first came out. But some of its harrowing depictions of slavery, fecund with delirious gothic melodrama, make most of Django Unchained seem a little tame. Mason and King are both fine, and Norton is well, pretty fine, too. The look of the film is perhaps its best aspect: Underlit, empty interiors, decrepitude and smoke everywhere.

There's a perpetual air of dishonesty about Hollywood depictions of slavery, from "Mandingo" to "Django Unchained" and "12 Years a Slave". There is always an element of exploitation, perhaps especially when the severity of it isn't glossed over. Fleischer's movie is certainly innocent of the latter, but using it as a setting for a melodrama, with archetypal villainous characters, still kind of dulls the moral edge I think.

Southern-fried trash set on a plantation c. 1845, where the young heir (Perry King) is happiest dallying with the slave women, while his father (James Mason) tries to cure rheumatism by putting his feet on a black child. The first hour or so is entertainingly repugnant, but the second half drags badly. Susan George is wretchedly hammy as King's neglected wife; Ken Norton, as the slave Mede, tries to maintain his dignity in these surroundings, but it's a lost cause. Embarrassing for all involved.

Rubbish attempting to strike a bard-like pose.