Review of Mandinga

Mandinga (1976)
Inept Italian imitation of. . .well, what do you think?
17 February 2008
As you might surmise from the title this is an Italian rip-off of the film "Mandingo", an American movie that was quite successful, but offended a number of people because it tried to combine a serious look at slavery in the antebellum South with lurid interracial sexploitation and "grindhouse"-style violence. Naturally, the Italians couldn't wait to jump on this--they were already making plenty of interracial sex films at the time, and they have never been a country inhibited by good taste (witness the cycle of Italian sexploitation films set in Nazi death camps). This film is less offensive than its model, however, because it's very ineptly made. Not only do you have the atrocious dubbing and dodgy Southern accents, but the "white" characters are all played by dark-skinned southern Italians and the "blacks" are played by northern Africans rather than African-Americans. (I also don't think there's too many palm trees and olive trees in the American South).

A young man returns from Europe to his wealthy father's Southern plantation. He begins an affair with his widower father's gold-digging girlfriend (who the latter refuses to marry). But then he falls in love with a virginal preacher's daughter and marries her, much to gold-digger's chagrin. She gets her chance for revenge though when the couple's first baby is born and turns out to be black! But all is not as it seems. Strangely, there's actually no interracial sex in this movie. The lusty, evil golddigger does seem to get off on watching the males slaves be whipped, and after she and the son catch two "slaves" having sex, they vow to show then "how their masters make love" and their is a brief "interracial" orgy. I'm using quotes, however, because the "slave" couple are obviously both north African Arabs and actually have lighter skin than the swarthy Italian actress playing the white mistress.

Given that all the sex here is between white people (and pretty unattractive white people at that), this would never have made it as an American "blaxploitation" flick. I doubt it made more than a brief appearance on the urban "grindhouse" circuit back in the day but it is currently in "The Grindhouse Experience Volume 1" DVD collection, along with quite a few better movies. I'd recommend the whole collection, but not really this movie as a stand-alone title.
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