Diagonaldi Very well executed

Nonureva Really Surprised!

Bessie Smyth Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Roman Sampson One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

bkoganbing I guess before writing about Mandingo I should mention exactly what a Mandingo is. Realizing that in those days of slavery in the South that owners thought of their slaves as little more than livestock, they were interested in breeding. A Mandingo is a male black slave, young, more than likely fresh from Africa which can be used for breeding. And he's got all the attributes that make a woman swoon. In this film all kinds of woman.Martin Luther King in one of his reflective moments said that racism injures the perpetrator as much as the victim. That is the main idea behind the film Mandingo that people cannot relate to each other as people with these feelings in the way.Gone way beyond feeling anything is James Mason the owner of Falconhurst plantation in 1840s Alabama. All he wants is an heir, but his son Perry King who walks with a limp because of a childhood accident just wants to screw around with all the young black women he owns. Brenda Sykes is a particular favorite. But Mason demands he marry so King marries a kissing cousin played by Susan George.Like Philip Carey in Of Human Bondage, King has a nasty inferiority complex because of his limp. But when you're a young master you've got no need to be courting any white women on an equal basis. So when George proves not to be a virgin and knowing he's got some comparison to go by in the lovemaking department King rejects his bride and still keeps shacking up with Sykes.Here's where it gets stupid like a romance novel. Not doubting that such things did happen, but not like this. George starts eying her husband's Mandingo slave, trained also in the bare knuckle prize fighting trade. Not even London prize ring rules for these matches, the slavemasters went in for no rules, after these were just property to them. The Mandingo slave is played by boxer Ken Norton best known for breaking Muhammed Ali's jaw in a match. He does acquit himself well in the part.Anyway she starts getting a little excitement in her life, more than she bargained for.More than racism is dealt with here. Sexism 19th century style is talked about. But it's all in a crass, sensationalist manner. Mandingo was first a novel and then a flop play on Broadway that ran 5 performances with Franchot Tone in the James Mason part.The whole slavery experience could have been dealt with. We don't see for instance what the vast majority of slaves were doing in the field dealing cotton or whatever other kind of agricultural product these plantations produced. Developing and breeding Mandingos was a hobby for these slavemasters, not what they actually kept the slaves for.A good opportunity was lost with this film.

vitaleralphlouis Political Correctness, the fascist-like suppression of Freedom of Speech is everywhere these days, and Hollywood is hopelessly confused about the "slavery issue." Thus we have movies like Walt Disney's wonderful and upbeat "Song of the South" out of sight since 1980 -- a movie not about slavery but about a former slave. Dozens of others also banished such as "Mississippi Gambler" which has a few presumed slaves in the background. Slavery was just fine in Steven Spielberg's super liberal (and false) slave movie. In 2010 the use of the N-word is the worst crime any person can commit, yet here we have "MANDINGO" readily available in VHS or DVD and listed on Netflix."Mandingo" focuses on slavery in Louisiana and the story involves just about everything from inter-racial sex, to slave trading, to intense and torturous discipline -- anything and everything. The dreaded N-word is "liberally" used throughout the movie. What sets this movie apart, besides the A+ production values and excellent story, is how level headed it is in terms of the characters portrayed. Neither masters nor slaves are stereotyped into being all good or all bad. The main character (Perry King) proves himself a decent guy in many ways, but he also does things that make you cringe.Many white people will watch with misplaced "white guilt." How silly! I, for example, never owned and never abused a slave. Did you? But what about black moviegoers? In 1975 I worked in an office in the Treasury Department where 75% of the employees were black females. I remember how anxious they were to see "Mandingo" and 4 of them on my branch arranged in advance for annual leave so they could see it at the 11:00 AM show at Loew's Palace on opening day. With "Mandingo" and with the sequel "Drum" in 1976, they loved these two movies. I think they's have told the PC Police to stuff it, if there were any PC Police in 1975.

ianlouisiana If you can imagine Kenneth Williams in the James Mason role and Jim Dale as his son,Liz Fraser as the daughter in law you may get some idea where I'm coming from.The idea that this preposterous trash was ever meant to be anything other than exploitative semi - porn is absolutely ludicrous. The employment of ex - boxer Ken Norton in the title role should give you a clue.He's big and he's black..........er,that's about it really.There were many excellent black actors the producers could have chosen if "Mandingo" was supposed to be a serious exploration of the horrors of slavery,why,in heaven's name pick a man whose only attribute is his size? I remember seeing the book on display at W.H.Smith,a well - muscled bare chested black man on the cover,his arm round a pouting blonde with a strategically torn silk blouse inadequately covering her large breasts....clearly a serious work of scholarship.................. It is fruitless for the makers of this movie to deny its leering voyeuristic racist heart.With the benefit of many years hindsight,they have claimed some absurd post -modern interpretation for their piece of smutty trash.It is - so they say - presenting a "warts and all" picture of life in the South before the Civil War.Yeah,right.There was a place for movies like "Mandingo" in the fly - blown windows of dingy back street shops selling surgical appliances and something for the weekend 30 years ago.There isn't any more,and everybody concerned with making should keep very quiet about it and hope that eventually it will be forgotten.

fimimix I read "Mandingo" when it first was published. I am a Southerner: I must comment that slavery was almost as prevalent in the northern parts of the USA as it was in the southern parts. After all, "The Mason-Dixon Line" isn't exactly in what we Southernerns call "The Deep South". So, the thing to keep in mind is - if you're not really well-educated about slavery in this country - that some of the states thought-of as having no slavery is simply myth. Even in the northern cities, people owned slaves.Although some users say the book isn't nearly as sexually explicit as the movie is, I don't remember it that way, at all. In fact, the movie is truly "cleaned-up". In the book, the characters aren't much more than scoundrels; the movie attempts to show them as a rather untidy society. The novel makes it perfectly clear that the plantation is not much more than a shambles, purely for breeding; the characters are ALL over-sexed, even the old man ("Warren Maxwell"), James Mason's role.A male, "Mandingo"-slave was very desirable in many ways, especially for the huge bundle of "meat" usually found in their pants. If their is any doubt that white-folk are more common to "rape" and pillage upon black-folk, then just read-up on what's gone on in Africa, among its cultures, for centuries. Darfur ring a bell? News-reports about soldiers breaking women's legs so they can't run away from rape ? I am attempting to write a autobiography, and write at-length on this subject. Indeed, there were plantations such as "Falconhurst" (?), because humans are humans. HOWEVER, the majority of plantations with a large number of slaves knew their value - $10,000 per ? Indeed, there was always miscegenation on all plantations, because there is miscegenation in all of our cities: humans are humans. That director Richard Fleischer chose to direct a lurid film depicting a inflamatory situation is admirable, but certainly can't be taken as "truth" for all plantations ALL OVER THE COUNTRY.I agree with one user who wrote that Mason must have needed to pay the rent, when he chose this role. Same for almost everyone in the film. Jack Kirckland wrote filth, and that's what the movie needed to be. My opinion is that Perry King ("Hammond Maxwell") was very convincing in his role; as for his sexual-activity, he didn't know much better. All plantations had slaves with different "degrees" of blackness - after all, the "house-servants" were a more refined breed than those who worked the fields.True, it WAS illegal to educate Blacks. Can you really believe that all slave-owners stuck to that law ? Bull ! The scenes in "Mandingo" which were supposed to have taken place in New Orleans could have been much wider in description. "Octaroons" - a very low degree of blackness - were present in every prominent family in that city, simply because they WERE beautiful, and usually accepted by the general society. As deplorable as the sexual activity is in the film, it's practiced in every country in the world, because humans are humans.I don't know which version of the film I saw, but I thought it was too short.....not because I wanted to see more degradation: I wanted the characters to be fully developed. In the version I saw, I felt that whole scenes had been cut, and the whole story wasn't told.You can find as much "documentation" The Deep South was a very genteel part of our country, just as you can find some plantations were hell-holes. You can't judge one by the other. Anyone who denies this isn't being realistic - enjoy the movie and leave it at that. I felt the cinematography could have been better, but I don't have any idea what "generation" of tape I was watching. Perhaps DVD is much clearer.That's the way it is, Guys - truth is truth. Degradatiion IS a human-trait.........