Skin Game

Shows the hypocrisy of slavery while also showing a bond between a white and black man running a con on slave traders. Had some really funny parts too! I never knew about this movie.

Based on Richard Alan Simmons' original story "Skin Game".

As the title implies, Quincy Drew/Capt. Nathaniel Mountjoy, Army Medical Corps (James Garner) travels the south in the slave days.

There he sells his slave Jason O'Rourke (Louis Gossett Jr.) Then the slave is dubiously retrieved and sold again and again. They have to keep moving as people are catching on.

The two plan to split the proceeds. Then when loves to intervene in Jason's life.

Things get complicated.

Better, tape your ribs before watching this one.

Filming locations: Laramie Street, Warner Brothers Burbank Studios - 4000 Warner Boulevard, Burbank, California, USA And Vasquez Rocks Natural Area Park - 10700 W. Escondido Canyon Rd., Agua Dulce, California, USA

That is in the south if you live in California.

American film critic Leonard Maltin describes Skin Game as an exceptional comedy...and I agree with him. To make a comedy focussing on two con men ripping off slave owners without regard to any-thing but making money, while at the same time satirizing American slavery is itself bold and original, especially considering the film was made in 1971. However, to make such a comedy work so smoothly and inoffensively as it does is indeed exceptional. Skin Game manages to work for a number of reasons, including because it is serious when it needs to be, complementing the humour with well-crafted dramatic moments that are firmly anchored in the plot and effectively convey the injustice and tragedy of slavery. It does this without attempting to make any grand moralizing statements that would detract from the main thrust of the story and lure the viewer into obvious sentimentalism. Furthermore, while Skin Game is first and foremost a comedy, after its two main characters end up face-to-face with the brutality of slavery, it becomes clear that the gig is up and the comedy is over. Ultimately, slavery is too horrible a business to be taken lightly and the two smart-ass cons have learned their lesson by the end of the movie. In these ways, the film can manage to be satirical and funny, while not appearing to make light of a very serious topic. It should also be mentioned that the humour is of course never directed at slavery or the slaves, but at the slave owners and their stupidly racist attitudes. Another reason why Skin Game works so well is because of the wonderful performances by its two main stars, James Garner and Lou Gossett Jr. Garner is of course an expert at playing the charming and witty fast-talking rascal, and in Skin Game, he gives one of his very best performances in a comedy film (along with Support Your Local Sheriff and The Americanization of Emily). However, the film also revealed Lou Gossett Jr.'s considerable talent. In his first important role in a major film, Gossett easily holds his own against Garner. The two have strong chemistry together, constantly trying to outcon each-other and delivering their humorous lines with ease, charm and spontaneity. The humour itself is maybe not highly sophisticated or extremely funny, but it's a smart tongue-in-cheek kind of comedy that makes you regularly grin and never feels forced. Overall, Skin Game is not only an exceptional film, but an excellent one that intelligently balances comedy and drama, and develops its unusual premise in an amusing, sensitive, and unpredictable manner. It's a shame this movie is not more appreciated, though it did lead to a TV remake (Sidekicks with Gossett reprising his role and Larry Hagman replacing Garner), and other reviewers have pointed out its possible influence on Django Unchained.

James Garner ever since he made his first big hit in the television series of Maverick refined the playing of a con man who's no better than he ought to be into a fine art. Quincy Drew is a further refining of the Bret Maverick character.

James Garner can be serious when he wants to be, but I've always gotten the feeling he enjoys being Maverick or Jim Rockford far better than playing it straight. He has to enjoy it more, he's so darn good at it.

Here he's got a racket going with Lou Gossett, Jr. During the days just before the Civil War in the 1850s he and Gossett work this con where Garner keeps buying and selling Gossett as a slave. Of course Gossett escapes and then they move on to the next town.

Trouble is with that kind of a con, your reputation is bound to catch up with you. Gossett, who was born in New Jersey and is a free black man, gets a view of slavery he didn't bargain for. Along the way he meets Brenda Sykes.

Garner also meets up with Susan Clark who's also a grifter. She aids him in his search for Gossett.

Gossett and Garner don't exactly redeem themselves in the end, but you know this is not a racket they will be trying any more.

OK finally got to watch this previously unavailable James Garner Western. It was directed by Paul Bogart who was basically a TV director and it really shows since the film doesn't quite use all of the advantages available to a cinematic endeavor. The only other film that I've seen that I know of directed by Bogart is another Garner vehicle based on Raymond Chandler's private eye character called "Marlowe" which I've seen and liked, but not in quite a while.

This film is probably the closest Garner ever gets in a film, that I've seen, to him reprising his Maverick persona when he his still young enough to pull it off, (he does so somewhat also, in the two Support Your Local... films with his cool wisecracking deliveries) but here he is actually playing a character Quincy Drew, who is a con man in the best Maverick Brothers tradition. The story circa (1857) deals with two con men Drew and Jason O'Rourke (Lou Gossett) a native of New Jersey, who we later discover met in a jail in Pennsylvania when O'Rourke was thrown into a cell next to Drew who was doing time for telling fortunes, its hilarious seeing Garner in a turban and fortune telling garb. They hit it off, and devise various different cons that they try out as a team until they hit on what they call the "Skin Game". This con consists of Garner riding into various Western border state towns Kansas, Missouri, etc., feigning poverty and as a result has to sell his best slave at an impromptu auction in the saloon, hotel, etc., etc. Susan Clark, plays a shady lady/pickpocket/con woman who targets the guys taking their money who eventually becomes Garners love interest. Ed Asner here, is in his villain period and he does a pretty good job as a slave catcher operating in the border area who eventually catches on to the con game. Gossett does a great job along with Garner & Clark.

The film is entertaining and plays it safe and cutesy, but it could have been a whole lot better with a more creative and daring director, its reminiscent of Eastwood's self produced Malpaso Production films in that respect, Cherokee Productions is Garner's company.

The what if's: If it would have shown Gossett & Garner's other various cons and how they stumbled upon the "Skin Game" con and had a better ending than the contrived one it does have it would been better.

I'll give it a 7-8/10 mostly for its Maverick nostalgia value. Its a shame its not on TV in rotation with other Westerns on the various movie channels but I think the frequent use of the "n" word probably is the cause of its not being so. Its almost as if the mainstream media has decided that that period of American History has been dealt with enough and can be swept into the closet.