Mandingo (film)

Mandingo is a 1975 American historical drama film directed by Richard Fleischer and starring James Mason, Susan George, Perry King, and boxer-turned-actor Ken Norton. The film was released by Paramount Pictures.

For other uses, see Mandingo (disambiguation).

Mandingo
Theatrical release poster
Directed byRichard Fleischer
Produced byDino De Laurentiis
Screenplay byNorman Wexler
Based onMandingo
by Kyle Onstott
StarringJames Mason
Susan George
Perry King
Lillian Hayman
Richard Ward
Brenda Sykes
Ken Norton
Music byMaurice Jarre
Hi Tide Harris
Muddy Waters
CinematographyRichard H. Kline
Edited byFrank Bracht
Production
company
Distributed byParamount Pictures
Release date
  • July 25, 1975 (1975-07-25) (United States)
Running time
127 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Based on the 1957 novel Mandingo by Kyle Onstott, and on the 1961 play Mandingo by Jack Kirkland (which is derived from the novel), Mandingo received mixed reviews upon release, but was a box office hit. It was followed by a sequel in 1976, titled Drum, which also starred Norton. Sylvester Stallone was an uncredited extra.

Plot

The movie is set in the Deep South of the United States prior to the American Civil War. Falconhurst is a run-down plantation owned by widower Warren Maxwell and largely run by his son, Hammond. Hammond and his cousin, Charles, visit a plantation where both men are given black women out of hospitality. Hammond chooses Ellen, who is a virgin. Both she and Hammond watch as Charles abuses and rapes the other woman, with Charles claiming that she likes it. Hammond asks Ellen if this is true, and she says no. Hammond then sleeps with Ellen.

Warren Maxwell pressures him to marry, so Hammond chooses his cousin, Blanche, who is desperate to get out of her house to escape her brother Charles. It is implied that Charles raped her when she was 13. After their wedding night, Hammond is sure that she is not a virgin—a claim Blanche denies. On their way back from their honeymoon, Hammond returns to the plantation where Ellen is kept and purchases her as his sex slave. Eventually, he comes to genuinely care for her.

Meanwhile, Hammond purchases a Mandingo slave named Ganymede. Nicknamed "Mede", the slave works for Hammond as a prize-fighter. He's forced to soak in a large cauldron of very hot salt water to ostensibly toughen his skin. Hammond also breeds Mede with female slaves on his plantation. Hammond makes a great deal of money betting on Mede's fights.

Rejected by Hammond, Blanche becomes a slovenly alcoholic who does nothing all day long. While Hammond is on a business trip alone, Blanche discovers Ellen is pregnant. Correctly assuming the baby is Hammond's, Blanche beats Ellen. Ellen flees, but falls down some stairs, and miscarries. Hammond (who had promised Ellen that her baby would be freed), returns to Falconhurst and discovers Ellen lost the baby. Threatened with bodily harm by Warren, Ellen does not tell him how she miscarried. Hammond gives Ellen a pair of ruby earrings, which she wears while serving an evening meal. Hammond gave the matching necklace to Blanche, who becomes enraged to find Ellen being publicly favored by Hammond.

Hammond leaves on another business trip, taking Ellen with him. A drunken Blanche demands that Mede come to her bedroom. Although the other slaves attempt to stop him, Mede does as he is ordered. Blanche says she will accuse Mede of rape if he does not have sex with her, so he spends the night with her.

Hammond returns to the plantation. A great deal of time has passed since Hammond and Blanche's marriage, and Warren Maxwell is eager for a grandchild. Sensing that the marriage is troubled, Warren locks Hammond and Blanche in a room together and refuses to let them out until they reconcile. They appear to do so. A short time later, Blanche announces she is pregnant, but when the baby is born, it is clear the child is a mulatto. To avoid a scandal, the child is killed on doctor's orders. Sickened at Blanche's sexual indiscretion, Hammond asks the doctor if he has the poison he uses on old slaves and horses. He pours the poison into a toddy for Blanche. An outraged Hammond seeks out Mede, intending to kill him. As Hammond attempts to force Mede into a boiling cauldron of water, Mede tries to tell him that Blanche blackmailed him into having sex. Hammond shoots Mede twice with a rifle and the second shot throws Mede into the boiling water. Hammond uses a pitchfork to drown Mede. In a fit of fury, the slave Agamemnon (Richard Ward) picks up the rifle and aims it at Hammond. When Warren calls him a "crazy nigger" and demands that he put the gun down, the slave shoots and kills Warren. As he runs away, Hammond kneels helpless next to Warren's lifeless body.

Cast
Perry King and Brenda Sykes in Mandingo

Production

Development and writing

The original novel sold over 4.5 million copies. Film rights were eventually bought by Dino de Laurentiis.[1]

Producer Ralphe Serpe said during filming that the movie was:

A human, sociological story that's going to bring about a better understanding between the races ... We're faithful to the story of the book but not the spirit. I mean, the book's hackwork, isn't it? It's almost repulsive. A lot of people have read it, but they read it for the wrong reasons. It's really a story of love. We had the script rewritten three times. ... I hated that ending in the book where the guy boils the slave down and pours the soup over his wife's grave. I mean, we have the slave boiled but we cut out the part where he pours the soup on his grave. He just ... pulls away. And we know that tomorrow there's going to be a lot of trouble. It's really a very beautiful ending.[1]

Charlton Heston turned down the role of the father and the role of his son was rejected by Timothy Bottoms, Jan Michael Vincent, Jeff Bridges and Beau Bridges. Boxer Ken Norton turned down a $250,000 gate to fight Jerry Quarry to make the film.[1]

Home media

Paramount Pictures licensed the film to Legend Films for its first official DVD release. The DVD was released on June 3, 2008, in 1.77:1 anamorphic widescreen version without any extras.

Reception

Critical response

Roger Ebert despised the film, calling it "racist trash", and gave it a "zero star" rating.[2] Richard Schickel of Time magazine found the film boring and cliché-ridden.[3] Movie critic Robin Wood was enthusiastic about the film, calling it "the greatest film about race ever made in Hollywood."[4] In Leonard Maltin's annual publication Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide, the film is ranked as a "BOMB" and dismissed with the word "Stinko!"[5]

Some prominent critics hailed the film, including the New York Times columnist Dave Kehr, who called it "a thinly veiled Holocaust film that spares none of its protagonists", further describing it as "Fleischer's last great crime film, in which the role of the faceless killer is played by an entire social system."[6]

Director Quentin Tarantino has cited Mandingo and Showgirls as the only two instances "in the last twenty years [that] a major studio made a full-on, gigantic, big-budget exploitation movie".[7] In Django Unchained, Tarantino took the terminology of "Mandingo fighting" from the use of "a Mandingo" being a fine slave for breeding in the film.[8]

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 26% critical approval rating based on 19 reviews and has an average score of 4.63/10.[9]

Racial criticism

In the 21st century, the film has been recognised for the heavy use of racist stereotypes, that were created during the height of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and were used to help commodify black people and justify slavery.[10][11][12][13][14] The film has also been the subject of racial analysis.[15][16][17] Film critic Roger Ebert called it "racist trash, obscene in its manipulation of human beings and feelings, and excruciating to sit through in an audience made up largely of children, as I did last Saturday afternoon".[18]

Sequel

Drum, the sequel to Mandingo, was released the following year. Released by United Artists, it was once again produced by Dino De Laurentiis. Ken Norton, Brenda Sykes, and Lillian Hayman were the only actors from the first film to return for the sequel. Norton and Sykes played different characters, and Hayman returned in the role of Lucretia Borgia. Warren Oates took over for Perry King in the role of Hammond Maxwell. The story is set 15 years after the events of the first film.

See also

References
  1. Millar, Jeff (April 6, 1975). "A Silk Purse Out of a Sow's Ear?". Los Angeles Times. p. m31.
  2. "Mandingo :: rogerebert.com :: Reviews". Rogerebert.suntimes.com. July 25, 1975. Retrieved November 17, 2010.
  3. Schickel, Richard (May 12, 1975). "Cinema: Cold, Cold Ground". TIME.
  4. Wood, Robin (1998). Sexual Politics and Narrative Film: Hollywood and Beyond. Columbia University Press. p. 256. ISBN 978-0-231-07605-0.
  5. Maltin, Leonard, ed. (August 2007). Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide (2008 ed.). New York: Signet. p. 860.
  6. Kehr, Dave (February 17, 2008). "In a Corrupt World Where the Violent Bear It Away". The New York Times. Retrieved June 10, 2012.
  7. Udovitch, Mim (1998). "Mim Udovitch/1996". In Peary, Gerald (ed.). Quentin Tarantino: Interviews. Univ. Press of Mississippi. pp. 172–173. ISBN 978-1-57806-051-1.
  8. Daniel Bernardi The Persistence of Whiteness: Race and Contemporary ... – 2013 "For the purposes of breeding chattel, he must also buy a "Mandingo" buck, a male slave. In the film, a "Mandingo" represents the finest stock of slaves deemed most suitable for fighting and breeding."
  9. Mandingo (1975), retrieved September 12, 2020
  10. "Popular and Pervasive Stereotypes of African Americans". National Museum of African American History and Culture. October 31, 2018. Retrieved June 22, 2020.
  11. Gray, Tim (June 17, 2020). "10 Problematic Films That Could Use Warning Labels". Variety. Retrieved June 22, 2020.
  12. Sastry, Keertana. "SHAME ON HOLLYWOOD: These Are The Most Racist Films Of All Time". Business Insider. Retrieved June 22, 2020.
  13. "Is the Old Spice Guy "Post-Racial" or Just Another "Mandingo"?". www.cbsnews.com. Retrieved June 22, 2020.
  14. Staples, Brent (June 17, 2018). "Opinion | The Racist Trope That Won't Die". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 22, 2020.
  15. DeVos, Andrew (May 1, 2013). ""Expect the Truth": Exploiting History with Mandingo". American Studies. 52 (2): 5–21. doi:10.1353/ams.2013.0005. ISSN 2153-6856.
  16. Southern history on screen : race and rights, 1976–2016. Jack, Bryan M., 1969-. Lexington. ISBN 978-0-8131-7646-8. OCLC 1076830655.CS1 maint: others (link)
  17. Race and racism : essays in social geography. Jackson, Peter, 1955-. London. ISBN 0-04-305002-6. OCLC 16082217.CS1 maint: others (link)
  18. Ebert, Roger. "Mandingo movie review & film summary (1975) | Roger Ebert". RogerEbert.com. Retrieved June 22, 2020.

Further reading
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