Der Sohn des Mandingo

Stella Stevens is off on the Poseidon Adventure, so Slaughter has to find a new girlfriend in this sequel in his battle with the mob. Judith M. Brown's audition was certainly a nice start, but she's no Stella. Of course, Gloria Hendry is working hard to keep him on a leash.

It was a treat to see Ed McMahon and Don Stroud, and Scatman Crothers, along with Brock Peters. They definitely made the sequel more interesting.

Dick Anthony Williams plays a classic pimp with the jive talk and flashy threads who joins Slaughter in a rip off scheme. Unfortunately, Stroud takes him for a ride. Stroud makes a classic mistake, however, and Slaughter is ready for action.

The cool dude just does the job.

The movie itself is pretty good - but only the ORIGINAL version with the awesome soundtrack by James Brown. For the dvd release, the studio was too cheap to buy the rights to original music, so they replaced it with new, generic sounding funk music! And they didn't even change the credits or the packaging to reflect that! That's a pretty big slap in the face to the father of funk himself, so that's why I say avoid this DVD at all costs.

Jim Brown returns for the sequel to the Slaughter. And quite frankly its as good as the first one, with a plot-line which is extremely similar. In this one, the mob kill some of Slaughter's entourage, so off he goes to kick some serious butt for the remainder of the movie. Its got a funky James Brown theme tune too. Very fun blaxploitation overall.

Here's another another golden oldie, a well made feature film, blaxploitation tale, with some thrilling action, especially the start, with the fake orange and reddy gore. We too, have hot broads, as well as the big black dude you don't mess with, as referenced by other black dudes: The one and only Jim Brown (Fireball in The Running Man) who makes most men look small. We have great villains, of course of being the eternal Don Stroud, plus a surprising well acted, and genuinely authentic performance by Ed Mcmahon. Some people want Slaughter dead, where he must of crossed some really bad guys, half the fun in the story, that has us, wondering if he'll survive, which we probably know he will. Recognize a voice and face right at the start. Sounds and looks like a very familiar Police Academy regular. How Slaughter survives a drowning, with his car catapulting off a towering cliff into the seas, had me flummoxed where his girl wasn't so lucky. If you like the attributes of what I've just mentioned, and you're a serious 70's action fan, this will make your night.

This meandering tale of mob revenge is simply not very interesting, even with Ed McMahon in a ripe role as the chief heavy. Jim Brown kicks ass effectively, Gloria Hendry proves again that she can bring life to even the poorest roles, and Brock Peters is decent as The Cop Who Plays By the Book. It's still dull and badly constructed, and even the print shown on cable is now emasculated of its original James Brown score.