Trouble Man (1972)

A man generally known as T (Robert Hooks) – that’s Mr. T (no relation) to you and me, or we’ll have to suffer the consequences, I suppose – is working as a bit of a problem solver in an urban black neighbourhood, keeping one leg on the line of the law and one casually crossing over, meting out justice where it is needed, going into macho postures and keeping the peace as best as one can without actually trying to change the world.

When minor crime bosses Chalky (Paul Winfield, in that stage of his career before he started to project distinction as his basic mode of operation and did instead slimy very well) and Pete (Ralph Waite, so sweaty he’s gotta smell, probably not welcome on a certain farm this way) ask T to help them capture a group that has been robbing their craps games, it looks like just another day in the life of a cool dude. However, T soon finds himself confronted with attempts at framing him for murder as well as  a convenient scape goat for your typical gangster business.

Though how convenient this particular choice of goat will really turn out to be is questionable, for our hero combines unflappable coolness, a sharp mind, a disinterest in working things out in a lawful manner that would probably get him killed or arrested for something he’s completely innocent of, with a talent for all things two-fisted.

More people will probably know Ivan Dixon’s Trouble Man for its (unfortunately more workmanlike than great) Marvin Gaye soundtrack than will actually have seen it. That’s a bit of a shame, for the film is a great example for the less exploitative, less crazy arm of blaxploitation cinema. In fact, I’m not even completely comfortable calling it blaxploitation instead of simply treating it as crime movie with a black protagonist. But then, trying to define genres, sub-genres and marketing labels too closely will only give a guy a headache, and blaxploitation can mean very different things to many different people at the best of times.

After a stint as an actor on “Hogan’s Heroes”, Dixon – one of the actual African Americans directing movies in the genre – became a clearly well-respected and hard-working TV director. This and the excellent spy movie The Spook Who Sat by the Door are his main feature films, and they certainly suggest a man with quite a bit of talent. Sure, Dixon isn’t one for obviously sexy stylish flourishes, but he manages to provide the handful of sets and locations he’s working with here with a genuinely lived in feeling, presenting the a bit too cool and competent to be likeable T as a part of an actual community, suggesting all the ways an at best ignored part of a population goes about building their own support structures when the rest of society ignores their needs (again, at best).

It’s a low budget movie kind of community, of course, but Dixon is genuinely good with the broad stroke characterisation that comes with that, and the actors are all the sort of pros that do well with a set-up like this.

Speaking of set-ups, while not terribly plausible (it may make sense to try and frame a guy who might genuinely be able to get away with murder, but T’s obviously the man you simply want to keep out of your business completely), the plotting works well. T’s way of finding out what’s going on follows a classic private eye film structure (and methods) in a satisfying way, until things do climax in the appropriate amount of gunplay, so there’s little about Trouble Man that isn’t at the very least satisfying to watch.

In short: The Horror at 37,000 Feet (1973)

Clearly, not at all named with any hopes in mind people might confuse it with a certain Twilight Zone episode, oh no.

An extra flight – therefore populated with few enough characters from the disaster movie playbook we’ll get to know them all, yay! – from London to L.A. runs into a spot of trouble. Nope, it’s not just William Shatner’s acting as a defrocked priest (though it is indeed hilarious enough to be dangerous to the weak of mind – see also, Things Man Was Not Meant To Know) that’s the problem here. Part of the plane’s cargo consists of altar pieces taken from an old English abbey, and as every reader of Jamesian ghost stories knows, that sort of thing can only lead to danger. This particular altar also includes a former Druidic sacrificial slab, so soon, women are speaking in Latin, the cargo hold freezes, and the plane isn’t moving very far any more.

What follows is mostly a competition between the actors concerning who can chew the horrible 70s psycho-babble dialogue the best/worst, some moments of “people not played by Paul Winfield become utter shites when under pressure”, and a lot of wind noises with a bit of added chanting.

As far as US 70s TV horror movies go, David Lowell Rich’s epic isn’t anything special. There’s little of the cleverness and actual sense for the creepy films like Gargoyles knew on display here, with Rich fumbling every possible fright scene through his nearly improbable bland professionalism. The script buries the seeds for what could be a cool little British style ghost story - but on a plane! -, or for an interesting little film about the differences between superstition and faith and what happens when these collide with something supernatural you really shouldn’t pray to, under a few too many 70s disaster movie  clichés, the already mentioned psycho-babble (where today’s TV is inordinately fond of clever quips, the 70s just loved to pretend to psychological depth by people spouting self-help book nonsense), and a haunting so hokey it’s pretty darn impossible not to use that dreaded word “camp” (the horror!). It’s rather frustrating, really, particularly once the film gets around to theoretically incredibly resonant scenes like the passengers preparing a doll as a symbolic sacrifice, and just buries them under the all-around hokum.

That impression of camp is certainly not dispelled by half a dozen actors fighting to out-act one another as outrageously as possible, resulting in so many bugged eyes, melodramatic pauses and weird line deliveries William Shatner’s acting approach here impresses as downright subtle, something that is bound to convince even a hardened sceptic like me of the existence of the supernatural.

Gordon's War (1973)

When Gordon Hudson (Paul Winfield) returns from the Vietnam War, he finds his wife dead of a drug overdose and his Harlem home overrun by its drug problem. After pushing around his wife's dealer, the delightfully named Big Pink (Nathan C. Heard), only leads to a group of Big Pink's business partners roughing up Gordon in turn, Gordon decides to solve Harlem's drug problem once and for all. He rounds up four of his old army buddies (played by Carl Lee, David Downing and Tony King) and declares war on the operations of Harlem's big player, Spanish Harry (Gilbert Lewis).

The group slowly work their way up through Harry's operation, harassing dealers and pimps and driving them out of town, disturbing the distribution of heroin. They're surprisingly successful too, so successful that not only Harry but also the examples of The Man he is working for, begin to get nervous and react.

Ossie Davis's Gordon's War is one of the more singular blaxploitation movies I've seen. One of the major differences between this and many other films of the genres is that Davis doesn't come to exploit black emancipation politics to make an action movie but attempts to exploit the action movie form to take a political stand dressed up as a revenge fantasy. It's no surprise coming from a man with Davis's background, and, if nothing else, makes for a nice change for the genre.

Of course, Gordon's War's message is a very simple one - drugs, brought in by white people with an interest in destroying any future hopes of African Americans, are destroying the black community and need to be mad to disappear, if need be with violence - and so easily enough fits into action movie structures. Consequently, the film doesn't play out very differently from other films of the vigilante genre, which is blessing and curse in one. On one hand, Davis doesn't walk into the trap of becoming preachy but on the other one, everything about Gordon's War seems just a bit thin. That impression isn't improved by the film's complete lack of characterisation: Gordon has a dead wife and is very dignified (he is played by the wonderful Paul Winfield, after all), Bee reads books, Roy has sex, and Otis has eyebrows. The film doesn't even bother to explain why his three friends are willingly helping Gordon in his dangerous crusade. Sure, we can theorize, but the film doesn't seem to care. In fact, the film doesn't seem at all to care about human emotions (even a major character death leaves only results in thirty seconds of emoting), character development, or motivations, so if one is looking for that sort of thing to - say - develop an emotional connection to a film, one is shit out of luck here.

In this regard, I also found it rather peculiar that we never actually see the film's drug dealers and pimps doing much drug dealing and pimping; it's rather difficult to share or even just understand the feelings of our vigilante heroes towards them when we only ever hear about their enemies' wicked ways but don't actually witness that much of them, except for their awe-inspiring taste in clothes. The damage they do is only shown in their absence - in a flophouse sequence and the sense of seeing a decaying community. I'm nearly tempted to suggest the film is actually about four Vietnam veterans randomly roughing up or killing people who they take for gangsters because they dress like gangsters, but that's not really what the film is about.

The film's strength - and this aspect of it can turn Gordon's War into a very gripping film if you can get yourself to care about a film that doesn't put any effort into making you care - lies in Davis's somewhat dry, detail-oriented direction that reaches for the documentarian. It's when the film shows us the flophouse, or just the daily life on the streets of Harlem when it actually comes to life, showing a care and emotional connection to Harlem as a place it never seems interested in building to its characters. His documentarian eye also stands Davis in good stead when it comes to staging action scenes, resulting in action that seems authentic and believable yet also tight and exciting enough.

As a whole, I'm just not sure what to make of Gordon's War, or rather, I have trouble understanding what Davis was thinking. Without a doubt, he knew enough about filmmaking to realize how little emotional heft his film packed, so I have to assume he left it out on purpose: as a Brechtian attempt at alienation? Out of loathing for emotionally manipulating his audience? To contrast his film against the melodramatic emotionality of other blaxploitation films? Damned if I know.

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