Colibel
Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.
Comwayon
A Disappointing Continuation
Sienna-Rose Mclaughlin
The movie really just wants to entertain people.
thekyrose
Despite what the "impression dujour" is on the discussion boards, about Mandingo, I didn't like it and still occasionally have unpleasant memories about it. It all began when I was loaned the VHS for this by an acquaintance a few years back. He told me that this was 1 of his favorite movies and that he watched it over & over....several times a year. He just couldn't wait to share it with me. When I asked him what this was about, he said, "oh...let's just say it's a love story, in a different place & time than today." I knew he was 1 of these kinda quirky people and I was expecting something Sci-Fi. I was intrigued when I realized it was set in the Old South. I was shocked...shocked that people would make such a film and shocked that such a nice guy like that would love something I thought Neo- Nazis would enjoy. Raping the slaves was bad enough, but killing not 1, but 2 innocent little babies...in such a blasé' manner (the young wife beating the slave into a miscarriage & the Dr and Old Massa letting the baby bleed to death) was even more repugnant. When they were telling the "Young Massa" about his girlfriend's miscarriage...I was further disgusted. "She slipped her sucker.." At first I was wondering why the slave was playing with those little fish that hitch rides on sharks, then I realized they were referring to her pre-born child. To refer to black babies as a "suckers" was more disturbing than I can say. On 1 hand it's a crude reference to breast-feeding, but it also conveys imagery as the babies (and slaves) as non-human animals. Then the conduct of the new wife was WAY off base. While the 70's was women's lib & all that, the Old South didn't allow high born white women to behave like that. Rare occurrences apparently happened, but Women were repressed in every form & fashion imaginable. Whale bone corsets were so tightly laced that they couldn't draw deep breaths and therefore spoke in breathy little "lady-like" simpering ways. Being prone to "an attack of the vapors" was a woman's way of being excused to go out of the room to fart and or burp. Again, those whale bone corsets were at work, constricting abdominal & thoracic space...making having gas an ordeal. Who could get a burp out when you couldn't draw enough breath to do it? They were always fainting (oxygen deprivation)in moments of stress. There was a whole, elaborate set of mannerisms and euphemisms for anything that could destroy a woman's mystique & grace. Men could refer to a chamber pot, or a slop jar. The ladies had to call it a "night glass." As for her taking her husband's slave as a lover...the society just wasn't that forgiving.
jcnsoflorida
I can see why this was controversial, and no doubt it would be if it were released now (2013). It's stunningly unlike Gone with the Wind. The style is extreme Southern Gothic, (not to be confused with camp). Some shades of Tennessee Williams but goes beyond where he dared. The dialogue is a bit difficult, and DVD has no English subtitles, but you'll be rewarded if you stick with it. (No need to understand every word). I agree that Tarantino was influenced by it but his approach to the subject matter is very different. Mandingo stands on its own as a major work of the 1970s and it's certainly a film that deserves to be better known. Striking photography and music throughout. This film panders to no one, nor does it simplistically tell the viewer what to think about anything. We have the feeling we're on our own with this. Maybe it's no accident that that feels liberating. Fasten your seat belts and see it.
vitaleralphlouis
Political Correctness, the fascist-like suppression of Freedom of Speech is everywhere these days, and Hollywood is hopelessly confused about the "slavery issue." Thus we have movies like Walt Disney's wonderful and upbeat "Song of the South" out of sight since 1980 -- a movie not about slavery but about a former slave. Dozens of others also banished such as "Mississippi Gambler" which has a few presumed slaves in the background. Slavery was just fine in Steven Spielberg's super liberal (and false) slave movie. In 2010 the use of the N-word is the worst crime any person can commit, yet here we have "MANDINGO" readily available in VHS or DVD and listed on Netflix."Mandingo" focuses on slavery in Louisiana and the story involves just about everything from inter-racial sex, to slave trading, to intense and torturous discipline -- anything and everything. The dreaded N-word is "liberally" used throughout the movie. What sets this movie apart, besides the A+ production values and excellent story, is how level headed it is in terms of the characters portrayed. Neither masters nor slaves are stereotyped into being all good or all bad. The main character (Perry King) proves himself a decent guy in many ways, but he also does things that make you cringe.Many white people will watch with misplaced "white guilt." How silly! I, for example, never owned and never abused a slave. Did you? But what about black moviegoers? In 1975 I worked in an office in the Treasury Department where 75% of the employees were black females. I remember how anxious they were to see "Mandingo" and 4 of them on my branch arranged in advance for annual leave so they could see it at the 11:00 AM show at Loew's Palace on opening day. With "Mandingo" and with the sequel "Drum" in 1976, they loved these two movies. I think they's have told the PC Police to stuff it, if there were any PC Police in 1975.
Poseidon-3
Conditions of slaves in the Deep South prior to The Civil War are given a fairly gritty and audacious treatment in this sometimes-sensational motion picture. Mason plays the patriarch of a large plantation who buys and sells slaves while looking for the perfect Mandingo (referring to an a-level breed of slave from a particular African region) with which to impregnate a female he owns. His son King, whose gait is affected by a childhood riding accident, aids him in his quest when he isn't deflowering the young female slaves, which is his right and privilege under the conditions of ownership. When it's time for King to marry, naturally he turns to a cousin (!) and proceeds to wed George. However, discontentment rears its ugly head almost immediately and he finds himself developing real feelings for one of his "bed warmers," the slave Sykes. Meanwhile, he has purchased towering Norton on his father's behalf and is using him as a stud for his female Mandingo and also as a fighter, which yields heavy cash for the estate. Unfortunately, when now-alcoholic George begins to grow jealous of Sykes, she puts into motion a series of events that leads to tragedy for many people. Mason gives an unfiltered performance of cranky, commandeering bigotry and, while it isn't the most pleasurable thing to witness, it is effective in its way. His character divests himself of rheumatism by pressing his feet against the abdomens of naked or semi-clad black boys! King somehow manages to invoke a strain of sympathy in his rash and regimented character, perhaps because even worse people surround him at various times. At around eighteen minutes in, he gives the world a glimpse of Perry, Jr. George is simultaneously desperate and vaguely sympathetic and yet riotously awful. Some of her tantrum scenes rank right up there with Faye Dunaway in "Mommie Dearest!" Her "hair" remains an enigma throughout, sometimes thin and fine with frosted streaks and other times a wealth of thick brown fluff. Former prize fighter Norton has a eye-popping physique, which is shown to great advantage, but as an actor, he is pretty much knocked out in the first round. His character is given quite little to say, which helps. Sykes uses a tenderness and vulnerability to make hers one of the more endearing characters even if her vocal delivery is sometimes a bit contemporary. Others in the cast include Ward as a long-suffering slave, Hayman as a poor man's Hattie McDaniel, Masters as a sadistic, entitled monster, and "The Jeffersons" neighbor Benedict as a pragmatic slave trader. Tedrow, best known as one of "Dennis the Menace's" neighbors, appears as a worried midwife. Despite its reputation as a tawdry, exploitive piece of screen excrement, there are top-level creative people in many departments including composer Jarre, production designer Leven, costumer Roth and cinematographer Kline. It's just such an in-your-face, no-holds-barred, non-gilded look at the situation that, compared to so many other films depicting that era, that it stuns with regularity. There's no chance of seeing Ashley Wilkes toddling by. The dialogue is rough and crass, the violence is vivid, the sexuality is (or, at least, was at the time) eye-opening. The film is guilty at times of taking pleasure in the unpleasant, but it has merit for the way it refuses to turn away from the cruelty and oppression that American slaves endured. It's interesting to note the hypocrisy of the characters, too. King sees fit to sleep with every virgin slave and yet expects his betrothed to be intact. Filmed entirely on location, there is a bleak, rotten quality to the setting that makes the events even more downbeat. It's not a film for everyone, but it is one that simply could not and would not be made today and that holds a certain curiosity value. An even more raunchy sequel "Drum" followed a year later.
