Mandinga

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.

The Italians are undeniable masters in the questionable "art" of ripping off and imitating movies. What they do is take an innovative, money-making and foreign concept, maintain the basic plot and just add a whole lot of action, sleaze and political incorrectness. But what to do when the non-Italian original is already a reputedly notorious film and quite difficult to surpass in terms of slop and controversy? Well then, I guess, you simply disregard everything in terms of story-building or stylishness and fully focus on making something that is practically a porno movie! This Italian turkey was inspired by Richard Fleischer's successful slavery-saga "Mandingo", released one year earlier, but since the makers were even too lazy to think up a different title, you shouldn't expect anything that even remotely resembles a narrative depth, character drawings, unsettling atmosphere or thought-provoking statements regarding cross cultural relationships. "MandingA" is pure and simply a sexploitation effort where the plot only develops itself throughout the last ten minutes, in other words when you stopped caring a long time ago already. The characters in this film are a gathering of despicable bastards, which is of course to expect when you're dealing with wealthy and obnoxious white folks running a plantation in South America. The elderly and supremely sleazy owner of the place is a widower (who probably also won a couple of "Moustache-of-the-Year" awards) who exploits and extendedly whips the slaves working for him. His mistress, who if I understood correctly is also his cousin (?), is a genuine bitch of a woman who enjoys provoking arguments and sneaks out of the house overnight to copulate with crucified slaves. When the plantation owner's son returns from Europe, after approximately 25 minutes of purely wasted running time, the plot slightly begin to develop itself at last. The handsome young man has sex with the bitchy woman a couple of times (even in front of the slaves, supposedly to "demonstrate" how their masters do it…) but eventually he falls in love with the cherubic preacher's daughter. His romantic preference obviously makes the bitchy woman mad with anger, and she plots a horribly cruel act of vengeance that will alter life on the plantation forever. Hey … I just realized this brief description of the plot actually makes "Mandinga" sound like an interesting film! Well, it's NOT and I apologize if I raised anyone's anticipations. It's an incredibly boring and hideous film to struggle through, but if the themes appeal to you, then definitely check out the aforementioned "Mandingo". Much rather than sick exploitation, that film is a truly insightful portrait of one of mankind darkest history pages and it was also a properly produced film, with real actors, great music and impressive filming locations. "Mandinga" has nothing, absolutely nothing to offer.

Italian rip off of Mandingo and The Drum is a badly dubbed Italian life on the plantation yarn. Lots of people who don't look like they belong in the American South wear badly tailored costumes and wander around locations that look nothing like the American south. The plot has something about the romance between a rich man and a certain young woman, the jealousy that ensues and the tragedy that follows. The film promises hot steamy sex and lots of twisted violence but nothing ever really comes of any of it, its all tease. Its all probably racially insensitive, I couldn't notice since its artistically bankrupt. The final twist is at best laughable. A major turkey.

Incredibly hilarious mid-70's Italian Rootsploitation with lots of non-consensual S&M, lesbian sex, gratuitous racial cruelty etc...Few redeeming cinematic qualities, except for the fairly cool theme music with dubby "African" drums and flute. Brilliant sample dialog:

White Slave Owner (to White Plantation Manager): "You're so dumb, I'll bet you forgot to interrogate that n****r midwife!"

White Plantation Manager: "Not only did I interrogate her, I did it so well she died before I could get any answers from her!"

All the black actors have 70's afros, and say "yes, massa" in a high-pitched voice. The female lead has sex with everybody on the plantation. 10 Stars for fans of tasteless sleaze.

1st watched 3/17/2002 - 2 out of 10(Dir-Mario Pinzauti): Silly, sex-filled master & slave having too many intimate relations movie. This movie seemed to care more about the sex than the story and kind of worked the story around the sex. Laughable dubbing of the original Italian language in the version I watched with ridiculous ending where the attempt is made to give an anti-slave statement(or should I say one line). What a waste of time for everyone who watches this trash.