Mandingo (1975)

Directed by

Richard Fleischer

Genre

drama film, action film, blaxploitation film, boxing film

Country

United States

Runtime

2h 06m

Rated

R

Rating

6.6 of 10 from 156 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

In the Antebellum South, a cruel slave owner orders his son to marry a white woman. The son's wife becomes jealous of his Black lover and forces a fighting slave into a sexual relationship with her.

bleakbrutaltenseexploitativemelodramaticgrimuncomfortable

What happens

Mandingo is a 1975 American historical drama film directed by Richard Fleischer and produced by Dino De Laurentiis for Paramount Pictures. It is adapted by Norman Wexler from Kyle Onstott's 1957 novel and its 1961 stage adaptation by Jack Kirkland. The film stars James Mason, Susan George, Perry King, Richard Ward, Brenda Sykes, and Ken Norton in his film debut. It concerns the Atlantic slave trade in the Antebellum South. In the film, cruel slave owner Warren Maxwell (Mason) orders his son Hammond (King) to marry a white woman to produce grandchildren with no black ancestry. Hammond marries Blanche (George), his cousin, who becomes jealous that he pays more attention to his Black lover Ellen (Sykes) than to his wife, leading Blanche to force the fighting slave Mede (Norton) into a sexual relationship with her. The title refers to the Mandinka people, who are referred to as "Mandingos", and described as being good slaves for fighting matches. The word is also used as a pejorative to describe a hypersexual Black man. Upon initial release, Mandingo received negative reviews. However, retrospectively, the film's reception became much more favorable. It has been variously seen as a big-budget exploitation film made by a major studio, a serious film about American slavery, examining historical horrors committed against African Americans, or as a work of camp. Critic Robin Wood described it as, "The greatest film about race ever made in Hollywood." Despite the film's poor critical reception, it was a commercial success and was followed by a sequel, Drum (1976), which starred Norton as a different character and Warren Oates as Hammond. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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