This was a truly odd French-Italian effort to reveal-expose-deal with American racism. The visual depictions were so far off but striving to depict the stereotype made them fascinating to observe.
Nothing "looked" American southern. In fact, for some odd reason, the story was set in the town of Cicada (for those who don't know, this is a beloved locust that noisily arrives in the south every seven years and sheds its skin, leaving behind transparent orange shells in the form of the bug, much to the delight of children. I've also heard stories about tying strings on these live bugs and listening to them make their screeching noise as they fly about.), but Cicada seemed to be situated in the American mid-west. Perhaps to not be too obvious? But plainly it was the segregated, Tennessee Williams, Richard Wright, Margaret Mitchell, William Faulkner, Eudora Welty south. The sayuth of the suh-thuh-nuhs.
But again, nothing looked right. It was plainly not a southern town. Maybe it wasn't supposed to be, but it was clear that it was.
The movie began with a strange tour going through town. We are given the lazy, drunken locals, we hear they are full of pride (that good ol' suh-thun pride, ya'll), but again no one looks accurate. The Beverly Hillbillies were more factual than this depiction.
We are shown a church, which again, is not the po' southern churches that were commonplace at this time.
We are told that the races are segregated by 'this gate.' Now any fool knows that segregation was re-inforced usually by railroad tracks (the one I am most familiar with) but it seems it could also occur with a river or stream as well. Rarely a gate or fence.
Once the buffoonery of the tour is out of the way, we are handed the plot; a white ex-serviceman pursues a black woman at a local dance.
He is later beaten up, and a white prostitute says that blacks did it, when she knows it was white guys.
A white mob, some of whom beat him up, are looking for a lynching. They don't care who they lynch, just so long as they get someone.
We are shown a black man whom the sheriff would arrest so he could have someone to play cards with. This fellow becomes the likliest target.
What transpires with our vet is astonishingly good, to say the least.
We are then shown two men, one black and one white. I think the white guy had gone for help.
They return to town, the black guy is shot. So they all leave town together, the white guy who had gone for help, the vet, the 'dead' black man.
This bit didn't piece together very well, but there was substance here. An idea, an impression and a plot.
Unfortunately, this movie was packaged as being something that might turn up on Mystery Science Theatre 3000, which is unfair and inaccurate.
Again nothing portrayed was accurate all the way to the people leaving at the end in a straw wagon (it would have been a pick-up. sigh.), but someone definitely had a story and it was here.
Nothing "looked" American southern. In fact, for some odd reason, the story was set in the town of Cicada (for those who don't know, this is a beloved locust that noisily arrives in the south every seven years and sheds its skin, leaving behind transparent orange shells in the form of the bug, much to the delight of children. I've also heard stories about tying strings on these live bugs and listening to them make their screeching noise as they fly about.), but Cicada seemed to be situated in the American mid-west. Perhaps to not be too obvious? But plainly it was the segregated, Tennessee Williams, Richard Wright, Margaret Mitchell, William Faulkner, Eudora Welty south. The sayuth of the suh-thuh-nuhs.
But again, nothing looked right. It was plainly not a southern town. Maybe it wasn't supposed to be, but it was clear that it was.
The movie began with a strange tour going through town. We are given the lazy, drunken locals, we hear they are full of pride (that good ol' suh-thun pride, ya'll), but again no one looks accurate. The Beverly Hillbillies were more factual than this depiction.
We are shown a church, which again, is not the po' southern churches that were commonplace at this time.
We are told that the races are segregated by 'this gate.' Now any fool knows that segregation was re-inforced usually by railroad tracks (the one I am most familiar with) but it seems it could also occur with a river or stream as well. Rarely a gate or fence.
Once the buffoonery of the tour is out of the way, we are handed the plot; a white ex-serviceman pursues a black woman at a local dance.
He is later beaten up, and a white prostitute says that blacks did it, when she knows it was white guys.
A white mob, some of whom beat him up, are looking for a lynching. They don't care who they lynch, just so long as they get someone.
We are shown a black man whom the sheriff would arrest so he could have someone to play cards with. This fellow becomes the likliest target.
What transpires with our vet is astonishingly good, to say the least.
We are then shown two men, one black and one white. I think the white guy had gone for help.
They return to town, the black guy is shot. So they all leave town together, the white guy who had gone for help, the vet, the 'dead' black man.
This bit didn't piece together very well, but there was substance here. An idea, an impression and a plot.
Unfortunately, this movie was packaged as being something that might turn up on Mystery Science Theatre 3000, which is unfair and inaccurate.
Again nothing portrayed was accurate all the way to the people leaving at the end in a straw wagon (it would have been a pick-up. sigh.), but someone definitely had a story and it was here.
