Dutchman (1966) User Reviews

Beauty and the Beast in the Twilight Zone

[higherall7 · 7/10 · 9 February 2016]

This film is book-ended by compelling black and white shots of the subway and this gives enhanced context to the main event coming up as soon as our train is seen roaring into the station. Here cinematographer Gerry Turpin makes a good call with the photography because it endows the film DUTCHMAN with an eerie TWILIGHT ZONE quality for its exposition and its resolution. Because of this, I was expecting something not quite real to happen down here in the underground away from the light. It therefore set me up for the encounter between two characters struggling to emerge out of their two-dimensionality into a three dimensional relationship that, like daylight, never dawns upon them.

I cannot stress enough how much this film looks like an episode of THE TWILIGHT ZONE, sort of a companion piece to an episode entitled THE BIG TALL WISH, and on that basis it works for me. I was not expecting Lula as played by Shirley Knight, to be an actual real person, and when she gradually reveals herself as a nightmare version of the American Dream Girl, it seems to befit this dark underground space and sensibility. Al Freeman Jr. also comes across as an African American everyman wearing his suit and tie with a veneer of respectability, while harboring the same fantasies of enjoying a high life free from the restrictions of social conventions as every one else.

The symbolism is heavy handed but delicious fun. Here we have in one corner the White Goddess playing Eve offering the Original Black Man Adam, now newly assimilated into Western society, the forbidden fruit. Yes, it is all quite sophomoric and the sort of thing that makes teenagers giggle, but nobody has to tell me why Clay gives Lula so much free rein before he finally at length gives her the bitch slap she so lustily deserves. She is such an appealing piece of eye candy that when Clay does his little jazz riff as an angry young black man, it all too little too late and not enough to keep him from being a victim of the predatory Lula.

Comparisons between this and David Mamet's OLEANNA eventually come to mind. This, which is little more than an experimental film, reeks with the heat that Spike Lee's film JUNGLE FEVER promised, but to my mind never fully delivered, while OLEANNA, also a play converted into a film, reeks with the kind of sexual repression that ultimately must explode upon itself.

Shirley Knight's Lula is beautiful to look at in a Sports Illustrated sort of way; and as she batters at the decorum of Al Freeman Jr.'s Clay, we sympathize as she takes greater and greater license with him. Al Freeman does not want to lose her company, but one wonders how she would have responded to him had he delivered his tirade at the beginning of the drama rather than the end.

One could almost say this was BASIC INSTINCT all wrapped up and basted in subway racial politics were the characters slightly more than the walking stereotypes they keep taunting each other they are. That probably is the film's basic weakness as was that of the play. The characters tend to revel in their stereotypical dramatizations in a very ritualized way that holds the ideas the writer is trying to express over and above the evolution of the characters themselves.

This is what contributes to that eerie TWILIGHT ZONE feel to the film. This is not a true story between real people, but rather a confrontation between Ideological Representatives riding the same subway train through Hell. Their relationship simmers with the same racist and sexist fever that beckons to us all in the wee dark hours of our mind.

Revolutionary Play Adapted to Screen

[brettski1130 · 6/10 · 17 November 2007]

When you first watch the movie, it seems pretty out there, with okay acting and an overly tragic ending seen miles in advance. . .But the script (orignially a two act play) helped shape our nation and our literature today.

The play's by Amiri Baraka, who still writes today. At the time of it's debut on Broadway, Baraka was a highly acclaimed playwright/poet -- still is for that matter. Written in 1964 at the turning of a nation the play held up the ideals of many African-Americans as well as the feelings of many European-Americans in the nation. It ruffled feathers, screams out the beliefs of both sides, and was honest. The play was somewhat autobiographical (Baraka was born LeRoi Jones in New Jersey, went to college, and was married to - though soon after this play divorced - a white woman), and shows the starts of a man who was on his way to becoming an inspirational factor of the Black movement.

This version of the play is worth viewing if you are interested in the tensions of this time period, or knowing a bit more about African-American ideas of the time. I gave it a six due to its historical connections rather than acting or directorial credibilities.

Subway Politics

[spearsdw · 27 June 2004]

Strange, allegorical drama about the struck-up-on-the-spot relationship between two passengers in a New York City subway car: a black man (Al Freeman Jr.) and a white woman (Shirley Knight) flirt with each other and engage in adult banter. As they alternately beguile and exasperate each other, their conversation reflects the sexual and racial tensions between them. The film is set entirely in the subway car, making for a claustrophobic atmosphere. Knight overacts some of the time (ok, a LOT of the time), laughing loudly, rolling her eyes, and touching Freeman in places where the NYC Transit Authority would probably prefer its patrons to not be touched, but she's never less than interesting and Freeman's more-subdued performance balances things out (although he gets to deliver a blistering, angry monologue near the end). DUTCHMAN's shocking climax is a disturbing culmination of the provocative racial and social themes presented in the film; the film's hour-long length allows for these ideas to have immediate impact.

Brutal honesty

[JasparLamarCrabb · 10/10 · 9 August 2014]

A brutal 55-minute adaptation of the LeRoi Jones play. Shirley Knight is a white woman who verbally (and seductively) abuses a seemingly mild mannered black man (Al Freeeman Jr) on a NYC subway train. She's alternately taunting and teasing and when she goes too far, Freeman explodes in a fit of rage. Their encounter serves as an in-your-face metaphor for the racial unrest running rampant in the US in the 1960s and it still packs a punch. Knight is startling and Freeman is excellent in what is essentially a two character play. John Barry's razor sharp score adds a lot and director Anthony Harvey is not hampered by the confined space of the set (an astonishing recreation of a subway car filmed on a sound stage in England). Brutal honesty.

Endlessly interesting.

[asmailrabbit · 9/10 · 21 February 2009]

Amiri Baraka is a poet. When you critique this movie, or even intend to appreciate this movie, you have to keep that in mind. You're watching poetry turned into a play turned into a movie. I must admit I was a little concerned about how a conversation between two people on a subway train was going to entertain me for an hour, but it did.

I hear a lot of people talking about how Shirley Jackson overacted, but it was clearly done on purpose and done so with gusto. Lula isn't an obnoxious girl in a skimpy dress and sandals, she is a blazing beacon for the destruction of a culture. I vastly appreciated and quite frankly was in awe at how masterfully inhuman she was in this film. Something as terrible as Lula isn't supposed to be played as understated or restrained or demure. She is a murderer, and she represents centuries of hatred..every unhinged, upstaging part of her. Al Freeman Jr. was equally as impressive in his own rite, and his part DID call for restraint, until the end that is. The language used in the film is beautiful in all of its basement dinginess. Don't expect to understand every word or sentence. A lot of it is supposed to evoke a mood rather than make sense literally. If you want to see a minimal but bone-crushingly powerful and inspiring meditation on the terpitude of our culture, of EVERYONE'S culture, then check out this movie. You'll be thinking about it for a while.

If you see Lula on the platform, walk away. Very far away, and if she follows, walk back to the opposite direction.

[mark.waltz · 4/10 · 14 March 2022]

When you first see Lula walking between cars into the 6 train at Astor Place, it's obvious that she is either mentally ill or drugged out of her mind. There's only one other person on that train, Al Freeman Jr, a handsome black man who is aroused by her in spite of the fact that she is one macadamia short of a nut house. She's the type of person that should have made him get off at Union Square (if it was going uptown) simply by her erratic behavior, and it ends up being a very disturbing 50 minutes about the very problematic 60's. Perhaps it is too real in telling its story of two strangers encountering each other, flirting harmlessly at first, but eventually getting into conversations and arguments and situations that are far too personal to be witnessing. If I was on a subway car with these two people, I definitely would be getting out at the next stop. For some reason, the Astor Place set is shown every time the camera pans to a subway stop. There's no way in a short period of time that they could go all the way uptown into the Bronx and then get back down again.

This story basically focuses on these two people, and it isn't until later in the film when other people get on the train, something rather bizarre on the very busy eastside subway. Even in the middle of the night, it's rare to be on an almost empty car. Since the film itself is very depressing, the only thing that I can say worth recommending watching this for are the performances by two award winning actors. Freeman was the first successful black actor on a daytime soap, always winning acclaim for his superb performance as police officer Ed Hall, his teaming with attorney Carla Gray creating the first black supercouple on a soap. Knight, who seem to prefer the stage over film yet had two Oscar nominations by this time, and she is obviously relishing this wacked out character, a great acting exercise, but not much fun for the viewer. Her character is definitely dangerouslt unhinged, and his character is obviously not drunk or high to be fooled by her, and it takes a while for his character to realize what kind of a female he's allowed himself to be taken in by. When he finally does, it's too late, and her explosion into absolute madness is not fun to watch.

A good idea but...TERRIBLE

[jonnygs · 3/10 · 13 November 2007]

This short film had an interesting premise. It starts with a black man, Clay and a white woman, Lula on a subway. They flirt with each other but Luna acts very strange, she laughs, makes fun of Clay and seems never to stay on topic. She pretends she knows a lot about Clay and talks about his life and his family. She teases him about what they'll do together and says he is a murderer. She continuously eats apples and constantly sys she lies and that he will lie to her after sex. Later in the film, many people get on the subway and Lula starts laughing bumping into people, wanting to rub bellies and other weird activities. Finally, Clay gets really upset and starts shouting about her lunatic behavior. He begins to chase her around the subway and attempts to get her to stop. When she doesn't, the subway goes dim and she stabs and kills clay. Next we see her on a subway with another black man and we know that she will do the same again. Let me be frank: this movie sucked. It was terrible because the conversations dragged on and on and on, with no point. I had no clue what was happening and only understood it at the end. Sometimes, understanding a film at the end is good but this time, I was bored and tired of the movie in the middle. The movie made no point concerning race relations and even if it made a clear one, by the end of the movie, I didn't care. Grade C-