Welcome Home Brother Charles

Marlo Monte portrays Charles Murray, an amiable dope pusher who is arrested by white detectives. Unfortunately for Charles, one of these white detectives is Harry Freeman (Ben Bigelow), a raging racist unable to satisfy his wife. What Harry does is that he attempts to castrate Charles, getting back at both the wife and blacks in general. Charles spends three years in the pen, renounces crime, and tries to go straight, although finding honest work is difficult. He shacks up with Carmen (Reatha Grey), a former hooker, and ultimately decides to get revenge on all the honkies who did him wrong: Freeman, Freeman's partner (Stan Kamber), the judge (Ed Sander), and the prosecutor (Stephen Schenck). This he does in an extremely memorable, "Holy *beep*, I can't believe I'm seeing this" manner.

The big money shot occurs around the 88 minute mark, and while it may not catch you off guard if you know the big twist going in, it's STILL a priceless sight to behold. It's guaranteed to send viewers into gales of laughter.

And yet, at the same time, this viewer doesn't know that this aspect of the story is meant to be taken all that literally. Our protagonist may well have become unhinged by his experiences. In effect, the debut feature for writer / producer / director / editor Jamaa Fanaka, who hit it big four years later with the first "Penitentiary" picture, is largely a traditional story of vengeance. But Fanaka makes it fresh by infusing it with subtext (namely, black male virility), and a portrait of black American life in Compton and Watts of the mid-70s.

The filmmaking may not be terribly slick, and some of the performances may be amateurish, but the participants do get an A for effort. Monte and Grey have engaging personalities, Bigelow is an appropriately despicable p.o.s. antagonist, Jackie Ziegler is all kinds of sexy as Charles' ex-girlfriend Twyla (she performs a strip number), and Tiffany Peters is good as Freemans' defiant wife.

Enhanced by some gloriously funky tunes, and William Andersons' sometimes seriously weird soundtrack, this is one blaxploitation oddity that definitely merits at least one viewing.

Eight out of 10.

Welcome Home Brother Charles (1975)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Small time pusher Charles Murray (Marlo Monte) gets arrested, beaten and thrown into prison by a group of racist cops and judges but when he's released he's a changed man to say the least. Soon he decides to take revenge on those who cheated him and he's weapon just happens to be his penis, which has grown to such a length it can strangle a person to death. OK, that there is what this film is known for today but even though the entire sequence is jaw-dropping, there's still no question that the rest of the film is rather slow, confusing and boring. WELCOME HOME BROTHER CHARLES is always going to be known for that infamous death sequence and I guess you have to recommend this movie to fans of bad or weird cinema because this one scene is just so silly that you can't help but wonder what they were trying to say with it. I mean, seriously, this is such a bizarre scene that I'm sure many will be hitting the rewind button to watch it again because they won't believe their eyes. However, it's too bad the rest of the film doesn't have quite as much, ahem, imagination. For the most part the story really doesn't make too much sense but I guess everyone was just following the Blaxploitation 101 handbook. The blacks are all just trying to make a living while every white person is either evil, racist or a combination. The one difference here is that Charles also has the ability to have white women become his sex slave but how these scenes are presented today you can't help but think of rape. The performances aren't what you'd call "good" but I did enjoy Monte in his role as he at least kept you slightly into the film. The soundtrack, cinematography and the overall look of the picture is quite weak and there's no question that a stronger story was needed.

Locate this film. Purchase it if you have to. Fast forward about an hour or so into it then play it. Soon you will see a scene like no other. Thousands of movies may be better but none are more memorable than this student film made by Fanakaa while at UCLA. I will not spoil the scene for you but let's just say the main character uses something very interesting to strangle a man. Its a body part but I will not tell which one.

What is the weirdest blaxploitation film? Could it be The Thing with Two Heads, with its story about an old racist who has his head transplanted onto a black man from death row? Or could it be Dolemite with its kung-fu pimp, karate kicking prostitutes, sweary nightclub routines and ever-present boom-mic action? Or perhaps its Darktown Strutters with its female motorcycle gang, comedy relief racist cops, colour-co-ordinated KKK biker gang, pig men in capes and minstrel musical section? Well, maybe it is one of those but then again, there's always Welcome Home Brother Charles!

This film's hero is a drug dealer who returns from doing time in prison after almost being castrated by a racist cop. Naturally he wants payback against his enemies. So, what does he do? Why, he hypnotises women with one look at his dick and then strangles their husbands with his two metre long knob! Its never even really explained WHY he has a python like John Thomas with a life of its own. It was to do with being in prison or something. Anyway, needless to say, this is a thoroughly strange exercise in biscuit-taking cinema and, therefore, comes highly recommended.

According to an interview with director Jamaa Fanaka in Josiah Howard's book Blaxploitation Cinema, 'Welcome Home, Brother Charles' was made while he was at UCLA; it certainly looks and feels like a student film, and one that would have barely scraped an E for effort, if it wasn't for one jaw-dropping moment.

The first half an hour is so disjointed that it's very hard to tell what is happening. to whom and why. It starts with a man about to jump off a building, his wife trying to talk him down. Then the 'wakka wakka' funky music kicks in, and suddenly it's all pimps and hos and drug dealers. After an old man tries to score with a hooker, the action cuts to hustler Charles Murray (Marlo Monte) as he is apprehended by 'the man', his arresting officer, Harry Freeman (Ben Bigelow), attempting to cut off Charles's manhood with a razor, a case of inferiority complex (in an explanatory scene, we see Harry returning home from defusing a radioactive bomb at an airport to discover that his wife has been screwing around, the woman unsatisfied with the size of her husband's junk).

After a kangaroo court finds Charles guilty of dealing drugs, he goes to prison, his time inside shown as a series of black and white photographs (thereby keeping film-making costs down). After three years, Charles is released to find that his girlfriend Twyla (Jackie Ziegler) is now sleeping with his old friend N.D. (Jake Carter) and his brother Teto (Jimmy Butler) is hanging with the wrong crowd. Charles decides that he is going to go straight, but first he has some scores to settle with those who sent him down.

Terrible direction, awful editing and weak acting make this a chore to watch, the cruddy performances from the amateurish cast intercut with random scenes featuring members of the local community, which lend proceedings a gritty realism, but only add to the overall cheapness of the film. Thankfully, Fanaka has an ace up his sleeve (or should that be down Charles's trousers?), one so bizarre that it makes the slog just about worth it. As Charles carries out his plan for revenge, he hypnotises the wives of his victims and has sex with them. But that's not it. No, the film's BIG surprise comes when Charles drops his trousers to reveal a humongous trouser snake (we're not talking inches here, but feet--and double figures!), the monstrous appendage crawling across the floor to strangle a man to death. It's so utterly unexpected that one can only marvel at the insanity of the scene and applaud its originality.

The film ends in a suitably bizarre fashion, as it started, with Charles cornered on a rooftop by the police and threatening to throw himself off. His girlfriend, former hooker Carmen (Reatha Grey), shows up and instead of trying to save him, she shouts 'Jump!'. Huh?

Not a great film - it's technically weak in almost every department - but definitely memorable and recommended to fans of cult oddities. 4/10, plus an extra point for THAT scene.