The Black 6

I'm so glad this was brought to my attention. While watching a documentary about the Minnesota Vikings, I learned about the interesting life of Carl Eller, and this movie came up. Needless to say, I had to watch it. From a genre viewpoint, it was a pretty standard Blaxploitation movie, but dang was it kinda funny.

The story is basically the saga of a peace loving biker club, who all happen to be comprised of some of the best football players in the NFL during this era of the early 70s. It was a nice time capsule so to speak, as there was strife in the NFL during this time and the players felt they were not being properly compensated. Only the best could live off the earnings of their NFL paychecks in those days, for many of those men had to get second jobs during the offseason. It only made sense to bring in some well built, hungry football players to portray a tough motorcycle club that was seeking answers for a mysterious death. The fact they got Mercury Morris, Willie Lanier, Eller, Gene Washington, Lem Barney and Mean Joe Green is quite amazing, considering the profile these players had during their time.

All of the tropes are there. Black man gets killed for dating a white woman, the brother of the man searches for answers in a nearly all white town, no one talks, some casual racism is spouted out, good guys battle racism, etc. There is nothing different about this film than from any others beyond the fact the good guys hilariously destroy a racist cafe owner's establishment. Trust me, that scene is gold.

My main critique is the end. Boy oh boy what the heck happened. It's clear they ran out of money, because even though it looked like our boys were going to get burnt and killed by the racist motorcycle gang, the movie just stops and basically tells us they won. How? Anyway, weird ending aside, it's a fun movie and worth checking out.

Made during director Matt Cimber's dive into the blaxploitation trend of the early 70s along with LADY COCOA and THE CANDY TANGERINE MAN, this film tries to resurrect the dead corpse of the biker film genre by using a black cast and racial conflict melodramatics and having them battle a gang of racist white bikers. This same concept was done much better a couple years earlier in THE BLACK ANGELS. Obviously intended to be enjoyed by black audiences, the Black Six gang are decent people who only become violent when provoked. The white biker gang are just one-dimensional thugs and murderers. It's all rather tame and dull throughout and only enjoyable for the outdated fashions and funky theme music.

After his younger brother is beaten to death "Eddie Daniels" (Robert Howard) decides to return to his hometown and find out who was responsible for it. With him are 5 friends who served in Vietnam with him. Although none of them want trouble they believe they can handle whatever comes. What they don't realize is just how bad things really are where they're headed. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this movie is a combination of a biker film and a blaxploitation picture rolled into one. It also had the distinction of casting quite a few NFL players in prominent supporting roles. Unfortunately, the script was weak and the acting was pretty basic as well which resulted in a pretty tame effort all things considered. In any case, the fact of the matter is that regardless of the effort to combine two notable sub-genres, the effort was a dismal failure as this wasn't a good movie by any measurement. Accordingly, I have to rate it as below average.

If it's at all possible, this one's even worse than THE BLACK GESTAPO (1975; see above): it concerns the revenge perpetrated by the free-spirited, peace-loving but ultimately tough brother (and his five equally brawny cronies) of a black man killed by a group of bikers for daring to go out with a white girl. The title characters are played by a variety of American Football stars but, apart from the novelty factor, this does the film no good as none of them can act - not that the rest of the cast is any better, as witness the old woman for whom they work early on in the film or the hysterical owner of the roadhouse diner they end up trashing after being insulted by their racist clientele! Even at this juncture, I can hardly remember anything about it - except for the exaggerated Afro hairstyle of the lead character's radical younger sister who rebukes him for going off on their bikes rather than joining the Black Cause - after which one of the guys tells him, "Ma-aaa-n, you have one he-aaaa-vy li'l sistah!" Also, the print I watched was so muddy and dark that, due to the characters' skin color, I could hardly distinguished one from the other, especially during the climactic fight!! There's also an eccentric white biker named Thor who, appropriately enough, dons a Viking helmet but I have no idea what he really had to do with the main plot at the end of it! Finally, the end credits show a hilarious title card which warns white "honkies" that if they "hassle a brother", they'll find the Black Six on their heels...or something! The director later made the intriguing horror film THE WITCH WHO CAME FROM THE SEA (1976) - whose R1 SE DVD from Subversive Cinema I've been eyeing for purchase for the longest time - but, after watching this piece of trash, I'll think twice before going for it as a blind buy...

The Black Six isn't the greatest movie around but what do you rate it against ? There aren't that many black biker movies around. The Black angels would be slightly better and movies like JC and the one with Motown singer Marvin Gaye only featured black actors. As a Black Biker movie in the genre its pretty good , and as a movie its good enough ! Actually its quite enjoyable most of the time and the action at the end makes it more or less well worth it and a great climax. The soundtrack is good funky stuff and the title song is absolutely amazing ! I don't know if the song "The Black Six" was ever released on 45 but the stylus would have a pretty hard job of staying in the groove as it would be dancing all over the place.

The movie is basically about a white girl and a black guy who fall in love. The white girls brother is in a motor bike gang and is a racist and he and his buddies kill the black guy. The Black six are six decent but no nonsense black ex army buddies who ride together . Also the guy who was killed by the racist bikers is the brother of one of the six. So its the revenge thing here with some adventure on the way. And an amazing climax and the end of the movie. Great action !