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“Rated X By An All White Jury.” Sweet Sweetback’s Baad Asssss Song is so mind-blowing it kicked off an entire subgenre on its own. For the first time in cinematic history, a black man asserted his sexual superiority, openly calling out caucasian insecurity, bigotry and hypocrisy. In early 1971 it was practically a declaration of war, a “dangerous” adults-only film that was the most successful indie until the epochal Halloween. If writer/director/star Melvin van Peebles had decided to “stick it to The Man” by writing a novel, say, or painting an epic mural, the glorious Blaxploitation movement would not have exploded and given us such endearing classics as Coffy,  Shaft, Superfly, Truck Turner, The Mack, Dolemite, the delirious Penitentiary saga or later revisionist works like Jackie Brown.

Leading a cast of unknowns as the eponymous Sweetback, Peebles hit the streets of Southern California, armed with a skeleton crew, a few mags of film and a $50,000 loan from Bill Cosby. The filming of his angry, self-righteous followup to the unfairly snubbed Watermelon Man was a feat of pure seat-of-the-pants directing; the project could have run out of money at any time. Peebles managed to get around his lack of a shooting permit by convincing The Man he was working on a porno film. That was hardly stretching the truth. Sweetback may have ignited a brief yet fertile period of creativity, yet none of its countless followers could never come close to matching its sexual content, raw anger, or pure fucking insanity.

Consider an early scene, with a 13 year old Mario van Peebles dramatizing our hero’s origin story. Left alone in a whorehouse, the scrappy youth is brought up in an environment not unlike Richard Pryor’s childhood home. While doing chores one day, one of the hookers beckons the kid to enter her room, where she promptly disrobes and asks Mario to do the same. The look on the kid’s face is that of petrified fear. One can imagine Melvin behind the camera, gesturing for his son to get on with the humpin’. Young Sweetback hops into the honey pot with great reluctance, sitting there still while his first honey begins to gyrate upon his prepubescent johnson. Mario stares blankly at the wall, when all of a sudden there’s a flash-forward to a fully grown Sweetback, running down a drainage canal, followed by some pretentious rabble rousing title cards:

Weird, dated talk like this, along with the psychedelic editing, transitions, and funky score by Earth, Wind and Fire, date Sweetback enormously. It’s purely a product of its particular post-Civil Rights zeitgeist. In other words, it’s the inaugural edition of Jive Turkey Theater! Its intentions are to be as over-the-top as possible in ensuring that no uppity Honkeys or Uncle Toms were involved in any step of the production process. The editor, in particular, must have been consuming peyote buttons with religious regularity. We’re back in the bedroom, to witness the christening of a certain folk hero currently in the process of losing his V-card. The sister moans in ecstasy.

“Mmmmm!! You’ve got a sweet….. You’ve got a SWEET SWEETBACK!!!”

Freeze frame! Title!

Baad Asssss, indeed! Credits then inform us that this is a Yeah production, starring The Black Community and Brer Soul. Just to make sure we’ve got enough African mojo running through the crew. Indescribably exhilarating in their kitschy energy, the intro credits are a lone high point for the entire first act. Peebles’ drugged cameraman captures a very tediously paced, bizarre strip show for the brothel’s patrons, involving a lady with a beard, a hat, a cane, and a strap-on dingus. As some Honkey cops look on, the lady finishes giving foreplay to a bare-ass naked soul sister, then removes her false breasts to transform into Fully Grown Sweetback.

Now would be a good time to get properly sauced up, provided you aren’t already blazed or frying on LSD like the skid-row production crew. Because brother, while there may be passion in Peebles’ vision, he sure ain’t got a sense of pacing. Neither is he a very good actor, though he cuts a striking figure in Sweetback’s pimp wardrobe (it’s unclear whether he’s a pimp, a performer, or a prostitute himself). As long as he doesn’t have any lines to deliver, his portrayal of the eponymous hero is adequate enough. While the cops explain that they just want to “take him in for questioning”, it’s clear from early on that it’s a vicious Catch-22 that can only end in bloodshed. Nonetheless, the stoic and iconic Sweetback can only do what The Man say.

Now shackled to another brother in the back of a squad car, the situation keeps getting worse as the cops drive to a dark, secluded place and park there. Slavery imagery, blatant and unmissable, drives home the point long before the cops begin their “interrogation”. The Christlike Sweetback turns the other cheek, as he becomes witness to a brutal gang beating that remains obscured by some horrendous lighting and photography. One of the racist Honkey swine snaps out of his orgiastic, xenophobic bloodlust long enough to make the fatal error of mistaking Brer Soul for an Uncle Tom.

Thankfully the sound, which varies wildly in quality from passable to abysmal, records the cop’s priceless line with crystal clarity. “Oh, sorry Sweetback, forgot you were still handcuffed! Let me take these off!”

The beating is resumed, but does not continue for long. Now freed from his oppression, he uses the shackles as a set of crude brass knuckles. After much sweating, panting, and bright red stage blood, the cops lie savagely beaten. Sweetback’s fellow brother is in bad shape but still conscious, offers his gracious thanks, and makes the logical query of what to do next. Sweetback doesn’t know or care, uttering his first line with any real conviction:

“Where d’ya get that weed shit?”

Sweetback knows the score; this is a Must Be Drunk all the way. His Baad Assss Song sounds much better with some good old chemical assistance. You might even make it through the remaining couple of acts, which consist of 25% psychedelic transitions suggesting foot travel, combined with comical musical urges from Earth, Wind and Fire (“C’mon, feet! Keep on movin’!”), 25% unerotic sex scenes, 50% abstract violence with a dash of animal cruelty for extra spice. Peebles proves that he never met a double exposure, split screen or trippy color distortion that he didn’t love.

The most tangible message that Sweetback’s story has to offer is that it’s impossible to cure Jungle Fever. Every woman wants a piece of that Sweetback, and he has enough ungodly stamina to comply with their primal, voracious sexual appetites. Too bad his cocksmanship hasn’t improved since he was a preteen; he still just sits there with ass facing skyward while the women writhe and have fake orgasms. Save for one epic scene, involving a biker gang and their promiscuous leader, where Peebles allegedly was forced to perform actual coitus since the actress was not good enough to meet even his low, low expectations. For his dedication to the craft, he came down with gonorrhea. Unfazed, he parlayed this bit of misfortune into an extra bit of cash from the film’s insurers. Presumably, Bill Cosby was unaware of these goings-on, but if not, this makes him one of the most fearless, daring, and trend-setting producers in Hollywood history.

Does Sweetback finally get into Mexico to avoid The Man’s limited reach, after a long traipse through the desert eating dead reptiles? Will he finally realize his dream of union employment in a biracial donkey show? Or will the Honkeys beat down the indomitable spirit of Black Power? Probably not, but then again my memories of the ending are a bit hazy so there’s no need for one of Roberto’s SPOILER ALERTS. Perhaps if you are a Black Panther, or perhaps Spike Lee or Quentin Tarantino, you may not need to be inebriated to make it through Sweet Sweetback’s Baad Asssss Song. I am a much weaker man than they.

For a less bizarre take on the same material, check out Mario van Peebles’ Baadasssss, which accounts the production of this film. Melvin’s son portrays his own father in an Oedipal situation. It’s a great warts-and-all performance in a solid film that doesn’t shy away from pervasive perversion or righteous Nubian indignation. After all, it was originally called How to Get the Man’s Foot Outta Your Ass, which would have qualified for one of the greatest titles ever.

Sweet Sweetback’s Baad Asssss Song will always be #1 on that list. It’s essential viewing for any fan of underground cinema. Casual viewers unfamiliar with Jive Turkey Theatrics should find a more suitable entry point from the work of Gordon Parks or Jack Hill. ‘Cause this shit’s CRAZY.

This blaxploitation quickie, made during the waning days of the movement, has a kind of epic scope despite being only 75 minutes long, and is effective despite its 75 dollar budget. At its (hollow) core,Brotherhood of Death wants to examine racial turmoil in the pre-civil rights American South, the societal pressure that made black men willingly enlist in Vietnam, and take a few swipes at LBJ for his pro-Catholic policies and general dunderheadedness. We briefly touch on these, but director/editor Bill Berry chops out every inch of fat to distill this into a simple revenge fantasy: black GIs versus the KKK!

It’s sort of a Z grade Deer Hunter, following three noble Nubian warriors as they anger the Klan, enlist in the Airborne, and learn the ropes of guerrilla warfare in the jungles of Nam. Charlie is the first to feel the brunt of their wrath. A shared joint and a jumpcut later, we’re back in the Bible Belt as it’s ever tightening around these Africans. Since this was made in the 70s, a rape becomes the catalyzing incident to pit the honkeys against the brothers. When the only decent white man, the town sheriff, is murdered by a deputy with an Evil Mustache, it becomes all out war.

You can fill in the blanks from here. What’s surprising is the intelligence in the screenplay and the artful compositions. Most of the action takes place at night (makes the brothers harder to see, y’see), and the lighting does not appear artificial, unlike 90% of cheapo exploitation pics. The barkeep sets up an intelligence network linking all the black servants of the Klansmen. Even the Grand Cyclops loudly plots murder in clear earshot of Rose, his live-in maid. Ambushes are planned and executed, stooges are kidnapped and used as bait. An insurgency proves effective at stopping the occupation, kind of like a zero-budget Battle of Algiers culminating in a grand shooting match. If anything, Brotherhood proves that wearing white sheets and hoods at night severely cuts back on your perception and severely increases your visibility. Also, poisonous snakes are good friends and buses make the best houses.

Pam Grier’s presence shines through the sleazy, one-dimensional screenplay of “Coffy” and makes the title character iconic. If Superfly exploded out the gate with engine nearly redlining, this awkward feminist parable sputters, backfires, and stalls thanks to Roy Ayers’ atrocious theme song and Coffy’s questionable moral standing. Is she really some junkie willing to sleep with crime bosses for “one more hit”? Is this movie going to be a series of sex scenes with some halfassed “black power” rhetoric tossed in? No, no, and NO. When she whips out a sawed-off shotgun and screams “This is the end of your rotten life, you mutha fuckin drug pusher!”, greatness has been achieved.

After that bit of housecleaning, it’s off to her night shift at the hospital, where she gets The Shakes and explains to her overly nice, patient (and soon to be brain dead) cop boyfriend pretty much everything that happened in a roundabout fashion. It’s justified, you see, as we learn from a trip through the Children’s Detox Unit to visit her mute, smack addicted kid sister. So Coffy’s soon assaulted by goons, nearly beaten senseless, in bed with a politician and a pimp named George (who has the most hilariously on-the-nose theme song ever), and uncovering all the evil honkeys behind the drug trade.

Grier must have at least 20 costume changes throughout her odyssey of shotgun revenge, and tries a few different accents too. There is the most epic “cat fight” ever put on film, the wonderful song “Coffy Baby”, Sid Haig as a Russian, and an ever escalating level of savagery mixed with good old racism. It seems Coffy wouldn’t have gotten to Step 1 of her idiotic scheme if not for the fact that she looks like some Nubian fertility goddess. That alone is enough for both her, me, and you.