SLAVES (1969)

In the South in 1850, we see Holland, a slave trader, buying up pregnant women and "bucks" to sell as breeding stock. Stillwell is a "nice" slave owner and is opposed to such traffic but because of crushing debt, and because of a legal loophole by which Holland still technically holds selling rights to Stillwell's slaves, Stillwell is forced to sell Luke, his most trusted slave who was going to be set free soon. Taken from his wife, Holland sends Luke (and Jericho, another slave) to Mississippi where they are sold to MacKay, a Northerner who prides himself on knowing African history and who does not believe in the inferiority of the slave, but who nevertheless holds many slaves and treats them cruelly more or less as a power exercise. Cassy, a house slave of MacKay's, is his mistress; she has plenty of jewelry and nice clothes, but she drowned the only baby she's ever had and has been drinking and living in almost a trance state ever since. At one point when he insists on having sex, she reacts in anger, and he replies, "It can be anger as long as you're lively for a change." When MacKay refuses to call for medical help for a slave birthing a baby, Luke takes the baby under his wing when the mother dies, and soon he and Jericho are planning an escape with the baby and another young slave. One night, Cassy attempts to stab a passed-out MacKay, but Luke stops her and offers to help her escape as well. The escape is attempted, with planted evidence showing that Luke, the girl, the baby, and Cassy have crossed the river, though they have remained hiding in the house. MacKay offers Luke his freedom if he will turn over Cassy, but Luke refuses, leading to his martyrdom which ignites a revolt among the slaves who burn down MacKay's cotton barns.

At first, this put me in mind of a movie like MANDINGO which has a reputation of being a sleazy slave sex-and-torture exploitation film (though it's actually better than that). But this ultimately has little sex or torture (the sex is not sexy and the torture is relatively restrained). It tries to be a character-driven drama, and you can feel the actors reaching to achieve that, but the filmmaking itself lets them down. The direction is haphazard and the production values feel almost amateurish at times. Ossie Davis is one-note low-key as Luke. Stephen Boyd as MacKay (pictured at right) makes a fairly good villain--at times he seems conflicted about what he's doing, but he can’t give up that feeling of total power over other human beings, and he's not afraid to make the character slimy enough that we don’t develop any empathy with him. Singer Dionne Warwick (pictured with Davis top left) in her first acting role, is Cassy--many critics point to her presence as problematic, and it's true that she comes off as too modern, in looks and attitude--she occasionally looks very 1960s--but nevertheless I think she gives a fine performance, giving some dimension to her character. A bigger problem is when one character refers to "hauling ass to freedom," which must certainly be an anachronism. Warwick sings as least one song in character and one as background, and the theme music reminded me of "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother." David Huddleston, the "Aww, prairie shit!" guy in Blazing Saddles, is the slave trader, and classic-era actors Gale Sondergaard and Shepperd Strudwick have small roles. Generally, an interesting failure. [YouTube]