7.5
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| "Welcome to scenic Atoka County. Pop 10,000. Cross burnings. Rape. Murder. Arson. Its a great place to live...... if THEY let you." |
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The Klansman
DVD/APPROX. 112 MINS/1974/USA UNRATED
DVD/APPROX. 112 MINS/1974/USA UNRATED
A small town in southern Alabama has a bit of a problem... almost all the white folk are members of the KKK! These blokes are your typical drunken
redneck KKK members as well, who have no respect for anyone else but themselves.
The film starts off with a white chick getting raped by a black man. Once the KKK members hear about this, they decide to take matters into their
own hands by killing some random black guy!
As for the woman who is raped, well the townsfolk don't take too kindly to this new-found "nigger-lover", even going as far as driving her out of
the church with their taunts. One hilarious bit included some old biddy sitting behind the poor woman yelling out "I smell nigger on her!"
Also for some bizarre reason, since this being a deeply racist town, the black folk decide to hold a rally there which bring in visitors from all over the
joint. One of these visitors is a former resident of the town, and as soon as the KKK members hear she is back in town they do the polite thing by
kidnapping and raping her! The sheriff (Lee Marvin) finds out about this and goes to get the girl, only taking her to hospital when she promises to
say that a black man raped her, when in actual fact it was his deputy!
All hell breaks loose after this as there is a black vigilante in town as well (O.J. Simpson, in only his second film appearance) who is picking off
members of the KKK. Also making matters worse is a lonely middle aged man Breck (Richard Burton) who lives on a farm and lets black people live
with him.
Trouble is brewing more and more frequently in town before one final showdown out at Breck's farm, that ends in one bloody hell of a mess....
A seemingly long forgotten drama-come-blaxploitation film, Klansman (AKA The Burning Cross) is actually a pretty fun movie, even though I can
see a lot of people claiming it to be tasteless, but is by far a product of its time.
I don't know why, but Klansman reminds me a hell of a lot of Johnny Firecloud in tone, with the ending of Northville Cemetary Massacre tacked on
for good measure, but in reality it is a pretty incompetently made film (especially Richard Burton's absolutely ridiculous Kung-Fu scene, which has
to be seen to be believed!) even though the budget was a fucking massive $5 million (shitloads for an exploitation film), which itself came from an
African American producer!
By the sounds of it, this was no easy film to make either. Samuel Fuller was originally slated to direct but pulled out, but even more interesting is a
rumor going around that both Lee Marvin & Richard Burton were always so out of it all the time, they officially met about 5 years later because they
didn't even remember being in the film with each other!
According to dvdpacific.com there are 2 different bare bones releases of this film, but what I understand is that both of them are cut TV versions
(God! cutting this down for a TV rating would be like cutting down Fight for your Life for a TV rating!), and as such the only uncut releases are
ancient obscure VHS's, although apparently Paramount owns the rights to this film, so hopefully maybe one day we may get a nice DVD?
If you liked Johnny Firecloud, Fight For Your Life, and also thought that The Mississippi Burning could've had more of an exploitation angle, then
this could be the film for you....
redneck KKK members as well, who have no respect for anyone else but themselves.
The film starts off with a white chick getting raped by a black man. Once the KKK members hear about this, they decide to take matters into their
own hands by killing some random black guy!
As for the woman who is raped, well the townsfolk don't take too kindly to this new-found "nigger-lover", even going as far as driving her out of
the church with their taunts. One hilarious bit included some old biddy sitting behind the poor woman yelling out "I smell nigger on her!"
Also for some bizarre reason, since this being a deeply racist town, the black folk decide to hold a rally there which bring in visitors from all over the
joint. One of these visitors is a former resident of the town, and as soon as the KKK members hear she is back in town they do the polite thing by
kidnapping and raping her! The sheriff (Lee Marvin) finds out about this and goes to get the girl, only taking her to hospital when she promises to
say that a black man raped her, when in actual fact it was his deputy!
All hell breaks loose after this as there is a black vigilante in town as well (O.J. Simpson, in only his second film appearance) who is picking off
members of the KKK. Also making matters worse is a lonely middle aged man Breck (Richard Burton) who lives on a farm and lets black people live
with him.
Trouble is brewing more and more frequently in town before one final showdown out at Breck's farm, that ends in one bloody hell of a mess....
A seemingly long forgotten drama-come-blaxploitation film, Klansman (AKA The Burning Cross) is actually a pretty fun movie, even though I can
see a lot of people claiming it to be tasteless, but is by far a product of its time.
I don't know why, but Klansman reminds me a hell of a lot of Johnny Firecloud in tone, with the ending of Northville Cemetary Massacre tacked on
for good measure, but in reality it is a pretty incompetently made film (especially Richard Burton's absolutely ridiculous Kung-Fu scene, which has
to be seen to be believed!) even though the budget was a fucking massive $5 million (shitloads for an exploitation film), which itself came from an
African American producer!
By the sounds of it, this was no easy film to make either. Samuel Fuller was originally slated to direct but pulled out, but even more interesting is a
rumor going around that both Lee Marvin & Richard Burton were always so out of it all the time, they officially met about 5 years later because they
didn't even remember being in the film with each other!
According to dvdpacific.com there are 2 different bare bones releases of this film, but what I understand is that both of them are cut TV versions
(God! cutting this down for a TV rating would be like cutting down Fight for your Life for a TV rating!), and as such the only uncut releases are
ancient obscure VHS's, although apparently Paramount owns the rights to this film, so hopefully maybe one day we may get a nice DVD?
If you liked Johnny Firecloud, Fight For Your Life, and also thought that The Mississippi Burning could've had more of an exploitation angle, then
this could be the film for you....
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