I worked for a brief stint between 1996 and 1998 for Blockbuster Video, thinking my knowledge of retro cinema would come in handy in the world of video retail but this pre-garnered knowledge I found to be so much more a curse than a blessing. Being able to identify and give chase to departing video retail thieves was a much more valued skill to my employers I discovered in time. Blockbuster in Pittsburgh had in some of it’s stores, predominately ones that were within city limits, a special selection of films titled “Blacksploitation”, action films from the 1970’s with mostly African-American stars and directors, music and writers, etc. What I found curious about the matter that there were low-budget White action films from the same time, a bevy of Roger Corman produced films for example, that didn’t have their own category.
I always found the Cinema Industry’s labeling of films as Blacksploitaiton as haughty and demeaning, nobody ever labeled Bob Clark’s early Horror films as low-budget Redneck Horror. While film bourgeois flossers love to espouse the virtues of Blacksploitation cinema, I am personally as a viewer far more interested in separating the wheat from the chaff, there is a quality separation as with any genre of films, if one believes that an entire sect of cinema is all the same, that viewer I would argue is not actually paying attention. Cinema buffs enjoy making equivalencies when comparing film figures and greats like drunken sports fans at the bar debating greatest evers. When it concerns 1970’s Black action films, i see a kinship with the look, style, and production values of 1970’s Kung Fu films, many of these films have a swagger and energy that exist on another plane, but are still, I would argue, effective storytelling formats.
As far as Black action films of the 1970’s and their filmmakers, take Fred Williamson, for example. Art cinema folks would probably remember him first for his role in Robert Altman’s “M*A*S*H”, but Williamson’s career path led him to an alternate dimension, where instead of being primarily a bit player and token in White films, Williamson made a cadre of films, primarily mostly with Black casts and crew, and Williamson performed at times as Actor, Writer, Producer and even Director on many of them. Modern audiences’ biggest dose of Williamson in the last ten years was the release of Quentin Tarrantino’s “Django Unchained”, which is at times a shot-for-shot remake of Jack Arnold’s very controversial 1975 Western “Boss Nigger”, which was written by, produced and starred in by, you guessed it, Fred Williamson.
Before any reader begins bombing me with definitive statements about Williamson’s career and filmography, understand that I am not familiar with all his films, I only have seen a few to this point, so I won’t declare anything to be his superlative work until I have seen them all. I did enjoy his offbeat 1989 detective film, filmed in France, I believe, titled “The Kill Reflex”. I also found him to be the driving force in “Joshua, the Black Rider” from 1976 as well, a spooky take on the mid-1970’s Clint Eastwood nihilistic Westerns. By contrast, Williamson is the perfect straight Man for Richard Pryor’s improvisatory antics in “Adios, Amigo” from 1976 (A film Williamson directed as well). What I saw of Williamson in “Bucktown” and “Hell Up In Harlem” seemed iconic, I have more viewing to do, I admit it.
In 1976, Williamson also starred, wrote, co-produced and directed a street action film titled “Mean Johnny Barrows”. Though the film’s effects and stunts seem pedestrian compared to not only today’s films, but the top action films of it’s day as well. There is a look and tone to this film that drew me in, however, it flows like a Kung Fu film in it’s ability to telegraph what’s coming, yet the campy and stylized manner in which it is done creates it’s own aura. It has incessant 1970’s funk jams providing the mood, along with hip clothes, cars and hairstyles. Trendy action sequences feature moments such as a character taking a Martial Arts throwing star to the eye socket, “Mean Johnny Barrows” has a climax still woven in the tradition of old-school styled gangster pics including narratives of greed, loyalty and betrayal in the Underworld.
There is not much of a plot to go by, the World of the Domestic United States in the 1970’s to a Black Man is seen as being as potentially dangerous as say, Vietnam. Fred Williamson plays the titular Johnny Barrows, former College Football star, (Characters keep referring to him as having played for some big school on the West Coast, in real life, Williamson played before going Professional and playing for the Kansas City Chiefs, at…..Northwestern University)who is summarily drafted into the Army and shipped off to fight in Vietnam where he earns the Silver Star for Valor in Combat. Barrows is a Hero on the battlefield but a target of racists in the Barracks, he is dishonorably discharged in part for slapping the shit out of an ignorant Redneck officer. Johnny Barrows is humble and unselfish, but he will cuff the fuck out of anyone who is feeling Froggy.
After the War, Johnny marches home to LA and it sucks. There is no Institutional resources or support for a Black Man of any kind, certainly not a Veteran of the Vietnam War. Williamson the Director creates a tidy film here, only Eighty three minutes in length. He incorporates a montage at this juncture in the picture where Barrows is scouring the streets of LA for work, Williamson has a perfect sense of shot for shot conservation, this is quite an attractive film, from it’s sun-drenched daytime shots near the Hollywood Hills to the neon nights of what I am guessing is North Hollywood in 1976.
If there is a sub-category that would define “Mean Johnny Barrows”, it could be the “Vietnam Veteran Returning Home” category, a type of film that in retrospect was more plentiful than most would have thought. “Coming Home”, “The Deer Hunter”, “Who’ll Stop the Rain?”, “Dead Presidents” and “Gardens of Stone” are just a few examples of notable Hollywood films involving American Vietnam War Veterans and their attempts to assimilate into American life again after the trauma of what they had experienced. While “Mean Johnny Barrows” might not leap to the forefront of most critics’ list of the best of the films concerning American Vietnam War Veterans, there are themes that run through the film that give it relevance to the genre in addition to that of American gangster films and that it’s not just a surface action film.
Williamson’s tight script and direction give the audience a feeling for Barrows as a protagonist, a lone wolf type struggling in a World that not only seems to have no need or want to welcome Vietnam War Veterans, let alone Black ones. The isolation in society of the former African-American combat Veteran is acutely on display here. There is no rest for the weary, nor often criticized. Johnny slinks around Los Angeles, looking for work, of which there is short supply. The look and shots of nighttime Los Angeles are inviting, it’s a playland for adults, if you have the resources. Williamson infuses aggregate comedy and glib retorts into the film during Johnny’s attempts to get a job, any job. At one point, there is a humorous scene involving poor guys on the street attempting to out maneuver each other to get to an uneaten Hot Dog that is sitting on the top of a pile of garbage in a garbage can. Williamson brings an earnest and gritty tone to being broke, hungry and alone, whether actual or metaphorical, it is tinged with wisdom and humor. Elliot Gould makes a hilarious cameo appearance in this that only lasts for a couple of scenes, but the repartee he and Williamson is buddy movie-esque, surely someone in Hollywood at some point thought of churning out a buddy cop script for these two, their pairing lends to instant giggles.
As Barrows flounders, people in the Underground who know of his past as a Football and War hero take notice and want to enroll him in their line of work (because they’re always looking for a few good Men), that being the peer group of organized criminals, in this case these are faux Italians who have moved to the West Coast. Beginning with Stuart Whitman as one of the members of the Rocconi Brothers. (Who makes up these names? The rival gang is named the DaVincis, I guess they were art dealers.) I never thought of Whitman as Italian, but I guess to Black viewers he appeared Italian enough, he is tan after all and speaks with a faux New Jersey rhythm and inflection.
We get Roddy McDowall and Mike Henry as “Italians”. I suppose Henry is supposed to resemble Sonny Corleone and McDowall Fredo. The Italian mobsters here are easy to discern; they eat spaghetti, they wear loud ties, drive big gas guzzling cars, they run flower shops that are fronts for Heroin distribution centers. The Rocconis, the good crime family that won’t sell drugs, won’t stop soliciting Johnny to become a hitman/collector-enforcer for them, Johnny refuses out of principles, bit when it becomes apparent that Whitman has been shot in a heinous double cross by the DaVincis and Whitman’s hot girlfriend Nancy (played by Jenny Sherman) is being harassed and threatened, Barrows springs into action, because for some reason in the 1970’s, when the bad guys take to harassing sketchy hot White chicks, someone has got to pay for their insolence.
When Johnny finally capitulates and becomes the embodiment of all the White characters’ fantasies about him, he not only experiences an uptick in stature locally, his wardrobe and mobility options improve as well, Johnny goes from sharing soup kitchen cuisine with street oddballs to looking and acting like a mother fucking ass kicking B-movie action hero, the persona the Rocconi Family Italians have been clamoring for, give us our Stereotype so we can adore thee. As if Williamson the writer knows secretly that his audience has been anticipating the Black Butterfly transformation of this character into something you can put a Band behind. Just like not showing the Shark in “Jaws” too soon. The Black version, at the time, of Clark Kent dashing into a phone booth a selfless dork and emerging an avenging street Samaritan.
The tone here is that of a Saturday Night drive-in movie, there is not an assortment of scenes involving characters asking what are they doing with their lives, but Williamson keeps it straight forward and simple, two large ideas stuck out to me in the aftermath of viewing this, aside from the groove-oriented and head nodding motivational music score by Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson. The first item that kept this film grounded for me in the gangster film tradition was the adherence to street morality and consequence. Though there isn’t a complicated plot going on here by any means, “Mean Johnny Barrows” stays in it’s Gangster lane and the action is sufficient. Once the mobsters understand what an effective killer Johnny is, he is almost held in high regards as a sort of Black John Wick-level hitman.
There are not a lot of Women characters here, with such a brief running time, “Mean Johnny Barrows gets to it’s fairly abbreviated points quickly. Barrows prophetically swears off involving himself in the Underworld, he knows it will lead to trouble that is possibly beyond his abilities to deal with. The final thought is the look of the picture, it’s images stay in my head, partly because I was Eight years old when this film was released, Williamson chooses memorable locales, even if it’s probably Malibu or Glendale. He stages a shootout in the back of someone’s house that could be in Chula Vista for all I know. Looks like the cast and crew downed a couple of cold ones and then staged a drive by massacre in front of Roddy McDowall’s rec room.
Robert Caramico provides the cinematography here, the look of the film is robust and vibrant. Although the flow of some of the climactic action scenes are klunky, the combination of groovy music, classic 1970’s threads, cars and hairstyles, and seamless interplay between Williamson as the omnipotent African-American hitman and a cavalcade of 70’s B-movie bit players pretending to be hardened Sicilian mafiosos makes for surprising entertainment. While nobody will ever confuse “Mean Johnny Barrows “with Friedkin or Walter Hill’s best, this movie’s breezy approach while still containing a core versed in street knowledge, is carried by Williamson to the finish line as the mantra from one of the soul music selections of the film’s soundtrack reprises and then shows on the screen along with the ending titles….”Peace is Hell.”
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