Watermelon Man

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.

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.

I just rented this DVD and loved it. At first, Godfrey Cambridge was a bit shrill for my taste but I got over it. His comic timing and acting was awesome. The humor was as sharp and cutting as a blade. Like in Sweet Sweetback..., Melvin Van Peebles doesn't go for the obvious commentary on race relations; I loved the scene at the end when the wife admits that she's "liberal to a point." People of color have hit this invisible and unexpected brick wall at one point or another with some liberals. Some of the production value and jagged editing notwithstanding, I was riveted by this film. It's sad how, over 30 years later, how timely it still is in a lot of ways. While I would love us all to get along, I appreciate the honesty and realness the film depicts of what happens when getting along is made impossible when one group dehumanizes another. Melvin Van Peebles does not shy away from showing this, nor does he apologize for or explain it. The film made me re-appreciate him as a real auteur, an adroit storyteller. Damn Van Peebles is good!

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.

I'd only seen "Watermelon Man" on late nite TV as a kid, obviously cut to hell, but the film always fascinated and disturbed me. I haven't seen it in literally 20 years yet I remember very specific scenes, particularly the amazing militant final scene. I finally picked up the beautiful DVD and my memory was correct. The movie is awkward in spots, but there's a vitality that pushes against the old-school studio vibe. And it still holds up as funny in many scenes. I like some of Peebles music cues although they are sometimes not apropos. There are some strong scenes dealing with suburban racial tensions and Godfrey Cambridge is terrific as he changes from a white bigot to a black man. The movie isn't as one-sided as some might think. One of my favorite films of the 70's. Check it out.