Watermelon Man

"Watermelon Man" might throw off quite a few people with its style of cinema. It's a work of the grandfather of American independent film, Melvin Van Peebles, and with that should come a certain measure of respect. Van Peebles may not have produced dozens of films, but he certainly turned the industry on its head 30 years ago. This is an interesting arrangement on the business side- hot off the European success of "The Story Of A Three Day Pass", Warner Brothers takes on filmmaker Van Peebles for a feature film. The story of Van Peebles versus the company in filming is a conte in itself, but the film remains poignant and striking in its cinematography and theme. Aggressive editing of both film and musical inserts highlight the subtle comedy and pure desperation of the story of a bigot who wakes up Black and watches the world turn against him.

It's something of a manic ride, but Cambridge gives it all the human character it can stand. His antagonist-cum-protagonist role gives you 360 degrees of frustration and forced humility. Van Peebles presses the more unreal moments into a sub-psychedelic form. Printed messages, color fills, choppy eye-effecting shots and that insistent score remind you that this absurdity is all too real. But ongoing themes such as "He stole something.. we don't know what yet," are darkly hilarious as is Cambridge's sharp wit.

"Watermelon Man" is serious film that will still make you laugh at times. This is not the kick-in-the-establishment-a** that "Sweetback" is, but it's an important step on the way. Alongside films such as "Cotton Comes To Harlem" (also with the superb Cambridge) and "Putney Swope," this is an important part of the early end of the Black film explosion.

Look for cameos by songwriter-actor Paul Williams as an employer and Melvin Van Peebles himself as a painter. Black cast staple (and director of "Dolemite") D'Urville Martin is also on hand as a bus driver in some of the film's funniest scenes.

I first saw this film on television about 7-8 years ago. It was part of a "Heritage Network" movie special. This was hosted by Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis. I fell in love!!! I had to own this film!!! How much were they holding the film hostage for???? $20 dollars??? $100 dollars?? And so I waited for a few years. My father would keep saying to me "Aren't you going to buy that movie?" I'd say "Yeah Soon", but just didn't want to cough up the cash for it. Then it finally arrived on DVD in 2004 or so. I purchased it at Media Play. And I have watched it several times. I think that it's ahead of its time. Godfrey Cambridge plays a very disciplined white man with a nice white family. He puts on his sneakers and runs down the hill as exercise racing with the bus. Just the like the Yuppies of the 80's that wore sneakers to work then changed shoes. He was doing this in 1969.. He was an insurance man and he believed in exercise, family, all the values that this country was raging against in 1969. Then he wakes up one day and is black. All the showers in the world can't wash off the color. His whole universe changes. Some for the worse, some for the better. I have a whole new respect for Godfrey Cambridge from this film. A highly intelligent man in real life, Godfrey lets this shine through in this film. Especially poignant is when he is selling insurance to young black families. He talks straight to them, and doesn't patronize them. You will see this in the film. No hard sell, No baloney. Another tidbit that you will find interesting is that the house interior they used is the same one that they used for another famous television family.....THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY!!!!!! There is a small barely audible directors commentary with the film, and you have to listen carefully to really understand it. Seems that the film company did not treat Mr. Van Peebles very nicely. And I am putting this nicely as i can. Anyway it's a gem of a movie!!!!

Somewhat unevenly charts the journey of a successful, loud and bigoted insurance salesman's transition from loathed go-getter to loathed gone-goner. The early twist in the tale, allows an opportunity to see a strong central character face a new challenge. However, sadly, the storyline passes up the chance to see a fighter fighting and the direction becomes bogged down in a realisation that Gerber is beaten from the very moment he is plunged into what the film perceives as an underclass. A particular shame, therefore, as it declares race crossover to be a sentence as opposed to an alternative - there is no real optimism afforded to Gerber after the key white/black event and the film might have been stronger with such an exploration.

The film can be disturbing; but with slick,in your face, stateside put-downs 'The Watermelon Man' certainly enters a sensitive subject area head-first and allows the viewer to make an early judgement.

Whilst the storyline delivers meagre reward in terms of development, there is enough here to warrant a recommendation. Cambridge is outstanding as the hounder who becomes the hounded and the spine of the film is its humour – bordering on the cheap for sure, but funny, often hilarious and providing the piece with an underlying energy. Racing the bus to work on foot, crudely separating the mugs from their money, learning to take hate on the chin – its all here.

The strength of the final ceremony/scene smacks of eventual acceptance, a sense of belonging and possibly a new way forward; this will shock many as it is bitter-sweet, turning laughter into cold realism. Perhaps Van Peebles was taking the easy option? I think a sequel would have been a fitting reward.

I rate it highly, even after considering its faults.

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UPDATED REVIEW: Today is 1 March 2005 and, courtesy of USPS, Amazon/Lasercorner.com and Travel Inn West 42nd St, NYC (long story…), I have now received the DVD of this film. I first saw it in the early 1980's and have been raving on about it ever since, saying to anybody that wanted to listen, that it was hysterically funny. It still cannot be purchased directly in England.

So today I watched it again, in the new high definition print. I want to amend my original review……

The film made me feel guilty about how much I laughed when I first saw it. Yes, it still has great comic moments but there is so much more to it. Scene 11 'property values', sees Jeff Gerber's formerly pleasant neighbours confront him at home and they offer him $100,000 for him to move out of the area. This scene made me feel sickened. Firstly because it shows just how bad the racial situation was in America (surely it has improved since then??) and secondly because, on the first viewing all those years ago, I just didn't "get it" – I saw an overall humour, where I should have seen the out and out bigotry, ignorance and sadness. After this pivotal scene Gerber tells his boss to stick his job and he moves on to get his own insurance business, settle into a community that he likes, reforms a long-distance dialogue with his blinkered wife and simply get on with being Jeff Gerber. In that respect my original review is seriously flawed as he is not completely beaten by race crossover at all – in fact he makes it work for him and a lot of positives come out in the final analysis. It uplifted me.

Hey, enough of the deepness! It is still a great film to own, share and talk about, even after its flaws are considered. I just felt that I hadn't appreciated the finer points of it until now, many years later.

Cambridge does an interesting lob playing a white man turned into a black man, but Van Peebles evidently wanted to make some pejorative assessments of both cultures. The negativity of the film is offset by slapstick and schtik - like the moment of awareness of the transition when Gerber goes to the bathroom in the middle of the night and when he gets off the toilet, a big black rear end fills the screen. The transition, itself, is never adequately explained: recessive gene gone berserk, sardonic God teaching a lesson, who knows?

The sad part of the film is the inability to ever find purchase in the community. Not everyone is bigoted but they are all portrayed as one big cliché. Any normal unbiased people are immediately put off by the reprehensible actions of Cambridge - so there are no friends or allies except of the same race - or more purely - of the same anger.

How nice this movie could have been if Van Peebles had allowed Gerber to rise to the top in spite of everything - to showcase hope instead of futility.

Continuing to review African-Americans in film in chronological order for Black History Month, we're still in 1970 when director Melvin Van Peebles makes his first major studio feature having previously done a critically acclaimed independent one called Story of a Three Day Pass. He casts comedian Godfrey Cambridge as Jeff Gerber who we initially meet as an obnoxious white insurance man-along with wife Althea (Estelle Parsons) and their two kids of different genders-who likes to run when leaving for his job in order to beat the bus. By the way, the light-skinned makeup on Cambridge is about as convincingly white on him as it was on Eddie Murphy in the "White Like Me" short film he did on "Saturday Night Live", that is, not much. Anyway, when the change comes, well, that's when all hell breaks loose! Now, knowing what I know about ironic humor concerning stereotypes, I found the whole thing just a little over-the-top and, you know what? I also found the whole thing hilarious! I mean, how can you not laugh at the attempts Godfrey keeps making to turn himself "back" like drinking lots of milk or putting his face in plaster. Plus, there's many funny sudden turns from now-"brothers" like the bus driver played by D'Urville Martin who claims to be Hispanic or Mantan Moreland as the counterman at his regular eatery who, when asked to look at his skin, says, "I don't need to look at your skin, I can see my own!" And wait till you see how Three Stooges regular supporting player Emil Sitka reacts when he gets attacked by Jeff over some new sunlamps! Not to mention Jeff's bed scenes with a flirtatious secretary named Erica (Kay Kimberly). I think I've said enough so all I'll say now is that Van Peebles provides much funny stuff from Herman Raucher's script in addition to his own contributions with his occasionally distorted score. So on that note, Watermelon Man comes highly recommended. P.S. It's quite interesting seeing who's also in this movie besides those I've already mentioned like singer/songwriter Paul Williams-here credited with the middle initial H-as an employment clerk or a young girl named Erin Moran-later to portray the teen Joanie Cunningham on "Happy Days"-as daughter Janice Gerber.