A Kentucky slave fights for his freedom from cruel overseer whose mistress eventually joins Davis and the other slaves in their revolt.A Kentucky slave fights for his freedom from cruel overseer whose mistress eventually joins Davis and the other slaves in their revolt.A Kentucky slave fights for his freedom from cruel overseer whose mistress eventually joins Davis and the other slaves in their revolt.
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Featured reviews
The late great Ozzie Davis plays a house slave brainwashed by the master who used the love of Jesus to do so. Ozzie eventually sees the light when his master, who promised he would never sell his slaves, sells him to a new master who sees his slaves as nothing but property, and as such makes the old slave how much slavery sucks.
Donne Warwick plays another type of House slave that catches the masters attention, if you get my drift, and she somewhat caught in-between being better than the rest of the slaves, but at the same time no different than them.
The movies best point is that is shows you the different types of mind sets slaves had back in the day. From slaves who want to be free to those who actually think things are find the way they are.
It's no 12 years a slave, but it paints just as Grim of a tale without the happy ending.
Did you know
- TriviaThis was the final film directed by Herbert J. Biberman before his death on June 30, 1971 at the age of 71.
- Quotes
MacKay: [in a room filled with African artifacts, he is addressing owners and attendant servants] We'd better all understand this darkie we own, gentlemen. He's the only self-reproducing machine in the world. Gotta know how to run it. I first met him in Africa, as a young man, when I ran a ship in the illegal slave-running trade, before I settled down here in the very legal, slave-driving, cotton trade.
MacKay: [to the servants] Boys, attend to the gentlemen.
MacKay: [he continues] I packed blacks into my ship until you couldn't walk the decks. Every morning we threw the dead and the rebellious overboard. They were not easy those voyages. But we could turn a profit if we got 40% of them here alive.
MacKay: [he continues] My library is always at your disposal. Volumes on all the aspects of human slavery. But I can spell it for you in this one, magnificent sculpture or in one story which tells all one needs to know about the human being, in slavery or out. In the African trade, I met an old chief. I bought many of his people from him. Discussing handling slaves, he said "Captain, in the soul of a free man, a little slavery and a lot weigh the same. So they do in the soul of a slave. So when you chain him, just as well chain him firm." Brilliant man! He was as black as coal. He'd find your views, Mr. Bennett, romantic; dangerous.
MacKay: [he continues] I know you all wonder why I keep these things in my house. They make you uncomfortable. Me too. That's why I keep them here. Ivory, stone, wood, bronze.
MacKay: [to Luke] Don't gawk, boy. Get that tray filled. Boy! Did you hear me?
Luke: Yes, Master.
MacKay: Don't talk back to me. Replenish the tray.
MacKay: [he continues] I just ordered a darkie out of this room. Do you know anything about him? From his facial characteristics, his people probably came from the Songhai tribe, the area around Timbuktu. Three hundred years ago, they had a university there where the most delicate operations were performed for cataracts of the eye. People came from all over the world to have their sight restored by these extraordinary, black surgeons. I believe origins can crop up even after ten generations - unless they get weeded out. What do we create? Surgeons? Sculptors? Or niggers?
- ConnectionsFeatured in Afro Promo (1997)
- How long is Slaves?Powered by Alexa
Details
- Runtime
- 1h 50m(110 min)
- Sound mix