Mandingo (1975)

Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

An action-packed slog

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

In slave-owning Louisiana, Hammond Maxwell (Perry King) is a dutiful son managing his family's rundown plantation and its slaves. He is considered kind compared to other slave owners but he is still fully involved in the institution. He has sex with his slave Ellen and takes a liking to her. He marries his cousin Blanche but their marriage is troubled from the start. From his father, he gets obsessed with purchasing a Mandingo, a slave gladiator. He buys hulking submissive Mede (Ken Norton) who he hopes to turn into a fighter.It's fascinating how times have change. This is comparable to 12 Years a Slave. While 12 got Best Picture, this got panned. The violence and brutality is matter of fact. There is nothing special in the whipping and the raping. They are everyday occurrences. Even Hammond is not out of the ordinary. He still has some of his humanity which only makes this even darker and more real. Back in '75, this brutal depiction of slavery was probably too much for many and was ahead of its time. It doesn't turn it into melodrama. It lets the audience exist in the dark times. Tarantino sees this as influencing his Django Unchained. It is missing more from the slaves' side of their existence. It would probably be better to have both Hammond and Ellen as protagonists. It needs to get inside the slaves' mind. Despite that, this is still a shocking and compelling movie.

Maybe in 1975, we still needed to make movies about how terrible slavery was, but nowadays, we're pretty saturated with that genre. If you don't like those movies, don't even think about renting Mandingo, because it's very upsetting.James Mason is the head of the plantation, but his son Perry King takes over the management when he's old enough. Perry seems to be nicer than his father, but as the movie continues, it's pretty clear he's even worse than James. Perry marries his cousin Susan George, who was abused in her childhood by her cruel brother Ben Masters. In the 1800s, it was extremely difficult, risky, and dangerous to confess something like that, but rather than have sympathy with his wife, Perry responds by buying a slave for the sole purpose of taking her for a mistress. You can call it a love triangle if you want to, between Perry, Susan, and Brenda Sykes, but it's not a very conventional one.The second plot in the movie is after Perry purchases another slave, Ken Norton. He trains Ken to be a fighter and also breeds him with other slaves for more workers. This is not Gone with the Wind; this does not glorify the South. This movie shows rape, violence, emotional abuse, and pretty much every other horrible treatment you can imagine. Even Susan, who could have been written as a "long suffering wife" character, turns out to be an abusive slave owner. If you really want to watch this upsetting drama, just know what you're getting into.Kiddy Warning: Obviously, you have control over your own children. However, due to violence, racial language, and sex scenes, I wouldn't let my kids watch it. Also, there may or may not be a rape scene.

This film is supposedly set in the 1840s South. In it, white men spend all of their time raping and torturing slaves. And, when they are not doing this, they are talking about raping and torturing slaves! They seem to have almost no life apart from this--no jobs, no family life, no hobbies...nothing. There is a plot where Perry King wants to exploit a black slave (Ken Norton) as a bare-knuckle fighter. But it's really all about the raping and beatings and it's very one-dimensional and stupid. Now I am NOT defending slavery or saying slaves weren't molested. But this came off like a cartoon or a film about the days of slavery if it were written by Bob Guccione. While a superficial level it looks a bit like a historical film, it soon becomes apparent that it's much, much more focused on offending and titillating instead educating or enlightening. In many ways, it comes off more like a porno movie laced with LOTS of sadism than anything else. And I wonder about the sort of folks who would LIKE to see this sort of crap. Who wants to see men and women being savagely beaten?! And, while many might want to see the sex and nudity, since it isn't consensual, who wants to watch a long series of rapes?! No wonder this film caused a stir when it debuted--it's terrible history, salacious and just plain nasty.Now it could be argued that although the film is very offensive, slavery WAS offensive or that at least the film was well-made. Sadly, however, the film is chock full 'o rotten over-acting. Bad accents (James Mason's was just awful), goofy smiles and leers as well as absolutely no subtlety are the best ways to describe the acting and you can't help but wonder if the director was insane or a chipmunk. In fact, any episode of "The Beverly Hillbillies" was acted and written MUCH more subtlety and believably! It's just bad on every level and apart from some nice costumes, there isn't anything positive I could see in it. It's definitely one of the worst movies of the 1970s--made worse by its big budget which was totally wasted.Some dumb scenes (apart from the rapings and beatings) include seeing Mason's rheumatism treated by sleeping with his feet on a naked black kid's belly(?!?!), the "...never, never, never, never done it!!!!" tirade as well as every love scene between Perry King and Susan George...every last one of them.Needless to say, there is LOTS of nudity (including full-frontal) in the film and I am actually surprised that it was only rated R. It's probably NOT a good film to rent to see with your kids or mother or anyone with taste. Perhaps bad movie buffs might find it all funny--but even bad movie buffs will probably be too offended to care.

While movies like Gone with the Wind glorified the Old South, this movie showed its gritty underbelly.This movie was made when Hollywood found it could finally do sexually explicit scenes, and they went all out in doing so, filming several scenes of interracial sex (must have gone over really big in 1975!) The film is meant to be an indictment of the racism and sexism of 1830's southern society, I guess, but comes off as preachy and even a little silly. Well, it's Dino DeLaurentis, a man who managed to foul up King Kong and Flash Gordon.the weakest part of the movie is the character of Ganymede (Mede) played by Boxing less-than-great Ken Norton. What is obvious about this film is that Norton was no actor. He mumbles his lines and we never get a feeling for what his character is about.James Mason was working for alimony money as the patriarch of a run-down plantation, while Perry King plays his son who is almost as close to a decent human being as any white person gets in this film. Susan George plays his long suffering wife who decides to get back at him for his "Wenching" by sleeping with his prize fighting slave (Norton).Is it worth seeing. Well, maybe. It's a film that had critics very upset in 1975, but it's become kind of a camp icon today.