6.6 | / 10 |
Users | 3.8 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 3.8 |
Mede is a slave whose master, Hammond Maxwell intends on keeping him as a prizefighter. As Maxwell focuses his attention on his wenches and Mede's brutal training, his neglected wife turns her passions towards Mede himself.
Starring: James Mason (I), Susan George, Perry King, Richard Ward, Ken NortonRomance | Insignificant |
Action | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: LPCM 2.0
None
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 3.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Okay, okay, let’s just get all of the jokes out of the way right off the bat. Even mention the name Mandingo and all sorts of ribald tales about the strapping black “buck” and the winsome, if conniving, Southern belle spring to mind. Mandingo was a sensation as a novel back in 1957 when it first flew off the bookstore shelves as a major bestseller, but it took the film industry almost two decades to screw up (so to speak) enough courage to even attempt a film adaptation. When Richard Fleischer’s Mandingo was released in 1975, it weathered a critical onslaught to become a huge box office phenomenon. Nonetheless, due to its problematic plotline and its copious nudity (including lots of full frontal from both males and females), it never quite matriculated to the broadcast networks, and the film more or less disappeared, usually thought of as a horrible embarrassment to all involved. None other than Quentin Tarantino once championed the film, however, comparing it to Showgirls (of all films) and stating its was a paradigm of major studio Blaxploitation. With all due deference to Mr. Tarantino, certainly an expert when it comes to niche genre and the filmic outré, Mandingo is about as far from Blaxploitation as Pulp Fiction is from Shakespeare. Now some 35-plus years since its initial release, revisiting the now infamous film is something of a minor revelation. When Roots became the 1970s defining television miniseries event, it ushered in what was then seen as a new understanding about the horrors of slavery. How odd that it had only taken two years for the public to forget about Mandingo, for the film is certainly a much more troubling and explicit exposé of those horrors. Unflinching, ugly and unapologetically decrepit, Mandingo is in a very real way Shakespearean tragedy writ across the southern experience in a way that makes more iconic films like Gone With the Wind seem like parlor game dress up parties. Now this is not to say that Mandingo ever attains the unabashed greatness of the Gable-Leigh starrer, but for anyone wanting an unforgettably visceral feeling for what the Antebellum South may have really been like, there is nothing quite like Mandingo, for better or worse.
DNR-phobes take note: not a stitch of restoration or clean up has been slathered on Mandingo, which arrives on Blu-ray from Legend Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. The master utilized here is filled with scratches, white flecks and a variety of other damage which will probably drive some people, including, yes, DNR-phobes, a little batty. And the image is also on the soft side, at least with regard to the opticals involving the opening and closing credits, and colors are often just slightly faded. But if you can get past those issues, this is really a pretty decent looking Blu-ray, full of the deliberately dark and often monochromatic work of DP Richard H. Kline. Colors, while not overly robust, are accurately rendered here, if the film seems to err a bit on the red side of the spectrum. In fact it's in the reds that this film really shows its deepest saturation, whereas greens appear slightly murky and black looking. Fine detail is very good in close-up shots, and grain is certainly still completely apparent. This release lies in stark contrast to some of the other catalog (public domain) releases that have been scrubbed to within an inch of their lives. This may have more than its fair share of damage, but the good news is, it hasn't been artifically tweaked.
Legend has very nicely provided an excellent lossless LPCM 2.0 audio mix for this film. While there's obviously a narrow soundfield, fidelity here is excellent and the soundtrack does not seem to have any damage or even outright hiss to report. Highs and lows sound full and natural, and Jarre's score is very well reproduced, including the great Muddy Waters blues number "Born in this Time." Dialogue is clear, though some of the Southern accents get a bit thick some of the time and may therefore be a bit hard to decipher. Dynamic range is well modulated and a couple of boisterous sequences, including some gunshots, provide some appealing low end.
Press Kit Slideshow (HD; 2:59) plays to the Muddy Waters tune utilized in the film, and shows a series of stills with captions from the pressbook.
I came to Mandingo expecting a camp-tastic laughathon that I'd be able to easily disparage. Imagine my immense surprise when I was sucked hook, line and sinker into an extremely involving, and very disturbing, account of the very real horrors of slavery. Yes, there are certainly melodramatic elements to the basic storyline of Mandingo, but the clearheaded, unsensationalized direction of Fleischer anchors this piece in a rather alarming sense of reality. Bolstered by a beautiful production design and several expert performances, Mandingo deserves a major critical reevaluation. This Blu-ray presents an unadorned image and a nice lossless audio mix. Believe me, no one is more surprised than I am to tell you that Mandingo is Highly recommended.
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