IMDb > Mandingo (1975)

Overview

User Rating:
5.6/10   950 votes
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Director:
Richard Fleischer
Writers:
Kyle Onstott (novel)
Jack Kirkland (play)
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Contact:
View company contact information for Mandingo on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
25 July 1975 (USA) more
Genre:
Action | Romance more
Tagline:
Expect The Savage. The Sensual. The Shocking. The Sad. The Powerful. The Shameful. Expect The Truth.
Plot:
A slave owner in the 1840s trains one of his slaves to be a bare-knuckle fighter. full summary | add synopsis
Plot Keywords:
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Awards:
1 win more
NewsDesk:
(2 articles)
Mandingo
 (From The AV Club. 24 June 2008, 9:02 PM, PDT)
Director Richard Fleischer Dies at 89
 (From WENN. 24 March 2006)
User Comments:
The 30th Anniversary more (48 total)

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

James Mason ... Warren Maxwell
Susan George ... Blanche Maxwell

Perry King ... Hammond Maxwell
Richard Ward ... Agamemnon
Brenda Sykes ... Ellen
Ken Norton ... Mede
Lillian Hayman ... Lucrezia Borgia
Roy Poole ... Doc Redfield
Ji-Tu Cumbuka ... Cicero
Ben Masters ... Charles
Paul Benedict ... Brownlee
Ray Spruell ... Wallace
Louis Turenne ... De Veve
Duane Allen ... Topaz
Beatrice Winde ... Lucy
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Additional Details

Parents Guide:
Add content advisory for parents
Runtime:
127 min
Country:
USA
Language:
English
Color:
Color (Technicolor)
Aspect Ratio:
1.78 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Mono | 4-Track Stereo
Certification:
Iceland:16 | Netherlands:16 | France:-16 | West Germany:18 | Finland:K-16 | Norway:15 (video rating) | Norway:16 | Sweden:15 | UK:18 (video rating) (cut) | UK:X (original rating) (cut) | USA:R
Filming Locations:
Ashland-Belle Helene Plantation - State Highway 75, Geismer, Louisiana, USA more
Company:
Dino De Laurentiis Company more

Fun Stuff

Trivia:
Edwin W. Edwards (Governor of Louisiana at the time) was cast as a gambler and several scenes were filmed but excised before release. Upon the advice of public relations staff, Edwards decided the potential damage to his public image when the salacious content of the film was revealed would be too great. more
Goofs:
Revealing mistakes: During Mede's first fight in the city, he and his opponent are wrestling on the grass. When they roll over the floor, the grass is moving like a slipping carpet would, revealing it to be a sheet of artificial green, probably lying on the floor of a sound stage. more
Quotes:
Hammond Maxwell: Cousin Charles, What the hell you doing, kissin on the mouth?
[Charles throws Katie to bed, removes his belt, and whips her with it]
Hammond Maxwell: What you doin that fer?
Charles: Makes a man feel good. She likes it too. Don't you pretty wench?
Katie: [Crying] Yes, master.
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Movie Connections:
Referenced in Blood and Blackboards (2006) (V) more

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User Comments

   (Comment on this title)
8 out of 13 people found the following comment useful.
The 30th Anniversary, 29 December 2004
Author: raysond from Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Even some thirty years after its release,the motion picture Mandingo is mainly but not to be compared with films like Birth Of A Nation,or Triumph Of The Will that be contemplate objectionable content of the material while reluctantly allowing mitigating qualities relating to the vast subject matter and to this day,it still gives shock value. In spite of what some may say about Richard Fleischer's exploitative film,since it is still hardly a artistic landmark,and it not on the same level as his other masterpieces,although he has a brilliant career as one of Hollywood's most talented directors. This was the man who was responsible for some of the greatest films ever to be released from Hollywood. He was responsible for crime dramas(Armored Car Robbery,1950) (The Don Is Dead,1973),psychological thrillers(10 Rillington Place,1971) (The Boston Strangler,1968),Disney classics(20,000 Leagues Under The Sea,1954),historical dramas(The Vikings,1958),(Barabbas,1962),and the dramas that inflict the horrors of war(Tora! Tora! Tora!,1970),westerns (Between Heaven and Hell,1956),(Bandido,1957),(Che!,1969),musicals (Doctor Dolittle,1967),(The Jazz Singer,1980),and well as science fiction,(Fantastic Voyage,1966),and (Solvent Green,1973). Each of these movies were made with great professionalism since these films are still a pleasure to encounter and still holds up and some of the best entertainment value anywhere. However,Richard Fleischer's most controversial work,Mandingo still holds the title some 30 years later and still is as shocking as ever.

Mandingo is very much a pulpy,lurid antebellum potboiler that really turns the fantasy world of a classic romanticized film like Gone With The Wind inside out,and to put in bluntly a slap in the face. For those used to the cozy image presented of the American South,this wasn't a Garden of Eden before the fall,but this was a nightmarish version of slavery that at the time audiences never seen,and the horrors of cruelty and in treatment of human beings became one of the most graphic and tarnished chapters in American History. Here this is a version of the Old South,which is nothing more than a turn on,where everybody seems to be sex-starved,slightly mad or depraved,or sometimes just plain knuckle headed. James Mason,in the nasir of his career,is a campily eccentric white massa,a slave breeder determined that his handsome randy young son(Perry King)settle down and provide the family with a new heir. King's got other things on his mind though,mainly a pretty slave wench(Brenda Sykes),his one true love. But he must contend with his daddy's wishes and soon courts and weds Southern belle Susan George,who is not all she seems,having very early on been deflowered by,of all people,her brother.

When King turns a cold eye to his new bride,the lady seeks vengeance by lending to her bed to a good,faithful Mandingo slave(Ken Norton),who in fact has been so good and so faithful that he is now rewarded with the Old South's most prized possession:this blonde,light-eyed white woman! During the seduction scene,director Fleischer works hard at heating up the audience which the infamous sex scene was the center of the entire movie in which the scene almost became too close to an "X" rating at the time this film was release. This was in the year 1975,were the envelope was pushed into even deeper depths here,especially in a movie where the majority of the subject matter was presented. Later on in the story,the bride bears Norton's child,who is promptly done away with. Then Norton,young master King's favorite(on the plantation,Norton's a fighter of uncommon strength,a winner of all of the matches the master sets him up)receives yet another reward for his handiwork once his paternity is revealed(and this is towards the end of the movie):he's thrown into a huge caulderon of boiling water,then has a pitchfork shoved into him! These are but a few of the horrors in this gaudy terror of a film. There are several scenes that were shocking to watch:there's lynching and incest and molestation,blacks treated like animals by their white counterparts,in the depiction of slave auctions,since life on the plantation wasn't easy....it was living hell. Let's not forget lots of interracial sex,and the film had as many nude black women as the envelope was pushed even further into detail. Also to look out for,actor Paul Benedict,aka Mr. Bentley from The Jeffersons as the slave trader. Even,after thirty years after its release,its still shocking entertainment and very well politically incorrect,and for the year 1975,that is a lot to say about a movie that really angered a lot of its audiences-mainly African-Americans,who went to see it.

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