Film version of Melvin Van Peebles’ Broadway musical. A pair of devil-bats take human form and crash a Harlem house party in an attempt to break it up. But somehow, their attempts to ruin the party fail.Read More »
Melvin Van Peebles
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Melvin Van Peebles – Don’t Play Us Cheap (1972)
1971-1980Melvin Van PeeblesMusicalUSA -
Melvin Van Peebles – La permission AKA The Story of a Three-Day Pass (1967)
1961-1970ArthouseFranceMelvin Van PeeblesRomance -
Melvin Van Peebles – Watermelon Man (1970)
1961-1970BlaxploitationComedyExploitationMelvin Van PeeblesUSAAn extremely bigoted white man finds out the hard (and somewhat humorous) way what it’s like being a black man, firsthand!Read More »
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Melvin Van Peebles – Sweet Sweetback’s Baad Asssss Song (1971)
1971-1980BlaxploitationDramaExploitationMelvin Van PeeblesUSAAfter saving a Black Panther from some racist cops, a black prostitute goes on the run from “the man” with the help of the ghetto community and some disillusioned Hells Angels.
“Run, motherfucker.”
Quote:
“Sweetback was politically unacceptable on the one hand, but it made a lot of money on the other. And I thought it was a stroke of genius to suppress the political aspects and highlight the cartoonish aspects, and there you’ve got your blaxploitation. In essence, blaxploitation ushered in a bunch of counterrevolutionary films….The upside was that because the films were so markedly “urban”–and I’m using the code word–they had to use minorities in central roles. So a lot of people got to learn a craft that had always been denied them.”Read More »