In honor of my moving into a rat hole across the road from the Marcy Projects, I decided to face off two of my favorite “racist” movies, two sleaze-fests from the ’70s that epitomize the best of the worst from the trash cinema boom.
In honor of my moving into a rat hole across the road from the Marcy Projects, I decided to face off two of my favorite “racist” movies, two sleaze-fests from the ’70s that epitomize the best of the worst from the trash cinema boom. I don’t know how my homeboy neighbors would take an invitation to come over, drink some brewskies and watch this double feature, but maybe it’s worth a shot?
We’ll kick it off chronologically with 1971’s Goodbye Uncle Tom (also known as Farewell Uncle Tom, brainchild of Mondo buddies Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi, two Italians whose previous efforts birthed the original Mondo Cane and Africa Addio. Goodbye Uncle Tom follows the pseudo-documentary format of other Mondo movies but adds a new twist: Instead of showcasing supposed “real-life” atrocities, accidents and horrors of the primal world, Uncle Tom has our directors breaking the fourth wall to take us on a journey through time and space. Jacopetti and Prosperi play themselves, two filmmakers who travel backwards in time to antebellum America, pre-Civil War, pre-Emancipation Proclamation and pre-Marcy Projects. They have been given special permission to record the inner-workings of the slave trade, from the journey across the water of captured Africans, to behind the scenes of human auctions and plantation life.
Throughout two grueling hours (though the original, highly censored version only ran 90 minutes) viewers are subject to teeth chiseling, circumcision, branding, rape, implied pedophilia and limitless other un-pleasantries. We do not hear too much from the slaves, rather their masters do most of the talking (go figure). But things aren’t all bad for the darkies! The film’s end displays an intelligent-looking and black power-type brother reading William Styron’s The Confessions of Nat Turner. He fantasizes the novel’s climax occurring in modern times, in which a band of blacks rise up and brutally kill their masters and oppressors. I dig it!
—
Fight for Your Life appeared later, in 1977, riding the rape/revenge movie trend started by Last House on the Left and I Spit on Your Grave. Director Robert A. Endelson’s second and final film, Fight for Your Life finds three escaped convicts lead by redneck Jessie Lee Kane (played by William Sanderson) terrorizing a couldn’t be nicer family of blacks. Kane is the only white one; the other two psychos are Asian and Latino, oddly enough. The boys torture, rape and humiliate the family to get their kicks. Kane zips off unbelievably racist but convincing dialogue, “Repeat after me… ‘Yes sir, massah Kane, all of us black ass coons is hungry!’” In one particularly nasty sequence, Kane uses a rock to bust in the head of a nosy 10-year-old white kid!
But fear not, Kane and his boys get their just rewards after all. The tides turn indeed and the black family regains power, giving the crooks a taste of their own medicine. Even wheelchair bound granny picks up a gun and turns it on whitey! This is a textbook rape/revenge plot offering a racial spin, which turns out to keep things fresh enough. During the 1980s Fight for Your Life was added to the banned list and remains unavailable in the UK to this day!
—
So which movie wins? Neither! Nobody wins when the game is racist, duhhh! However, my boys next door just got to know the answer, so I’ll give it to Goodbye Uncle Tom, mostly because I found it more repulsive than Fight for Your Life. Both are worth your time and lucky for you, Blue Underground has got them on DVD, uncut and uncensored. So look it up kids! And remember, love always for the homies.
I liked both of these as well. a similar not as good but just as crazy one is”halls of anger”. white kids go to an all black school and are taunted and terrorized by the kids, some of whom can’t read. so the teacher has them stay after class and read aloud from “lady chatterly’s lover”! I guess alot of the people involved with it were pissed with how it turned out.
netflix has both the above too but not HOA
woah. is kane played by the dude from blade runner!?!?!
more entries on this crazy exploitation stuff would be great;
the uncle tom one looks weirdly well-made i must say…
yo dats da nigga frum blade runna