CompleteMartialArts.com - Mandingo
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List Price: $14.95
Our Price: $15.99
Availability: N/A
Manufacturer: Paramount
Starring: James Mason, Susan George, Perry King, Richard Ward, Brenda Sykes
Directed By: Richard Fleischer
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9786300216631
Format: Color
ISBN: 6300216632
Label: Paramount
Manufacturer: Paramount
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Paramount
Release Date: 1998-01-01
Running Time: 121
Studio: Paramount
Theatrical Release Date: 1975-07-25
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: 5 STAR RATING for PERRY KING ONLY!!!!!
Comment: This 5 star review is for Perry King only. He plays the nice slave owner in the film, a slave owner with a heart. Anyways I'm a huge fan of Perry ever since i saw him in Melrose Place & Switch. Of course all his films are not available since he starting acting in the 70's and i wanted to see his earlier works. I was shocked but the UNCUT version of the film was actually available on iTunes so i rented it. It's coming out on DVD this June 2008. I really didn't care for the film nor did i find it racy the way ever other review has it on here. Definitely check this out for a young Perry. It such a shame he isn't in more films. He has charisma and the X-FACTOR all the way. It truly isn't as racy as everyone says it is. It could have been much more racy but this is the 70's.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Don't listen to the others - this is an excellent film & true historically
Comment: Do not REPEAT do not listen to the people who gave bad reviews to this film. The movie is very fine (though not without a few weaknesses - even Kubrick's movies had weaknesses), a true case of realistic historical filmmaking by a noted director.
1) To those who found the film offensive - well, I guess you found Shindler's List offensive. There's nudity, torture, excessive emotions, etc. Everything depicted in this film was historically accurate and has been recorded in varying instances. If you found it offensive, then go back to watching LOVE STORY or reruns of FRIENDS.
2) The movie is fascinating. Yes, it's melodrama - well, sometimes life IS a melodrama. Anyone see LA VIE EN ROSE, the Academy Award winning best foreign film on the life of of singer Edith Piaf? Or NOW VOYAGER? THE COLOR PURPLE? The great films of the 50s by Douglas Sirk? This does not make a film bad by any means.
3) The film is an accurate depiction of various aspects of American slavery. Period. Miscegenation DID happen - ever read about Thomas Jefferson? Slave markets. They existed & were run as shown in the film (read some of the diaries from the time period). When someone complains about this movie - it's because it's NOT cheap whitewash the way GONE WITH THE WIND was. And the movie does show some of the strange ways that southerners - the plantation owners, thought & acted in their time.
The film is important in that it was groundbreaking in the way it showed slavery in the south. If it's not your cup of tea, that's one thing. Fine. Hey - my friend hates Ingmar Bergman movies, but are they really boring, nothing-happening films? You cannot knock a movie just because you don't like the subject matter. One has to review something fairly, within its genre. I have an aunt who hates gangster movies and thinks THE GODFATHER is cheap soap opera junk. Is she giving a valid review of the film?
4) The film is a serious look at a lurid subject. And it is not unintentionally funny or humorous. Those who laughed at this motion picture are not to be taken seriously - they're just here at Amazon trashing movies, taking cheap shots. One cannot look at a serious depiction of slavery (with actual behaviors and events based on historical research) and find it funny. If they do, well - consider the source and disregard whatever they have to say. Their life view is obviously skewed.
In closing, this film is well paced, has fine acting, fascinating characters, terrific photography, and a story that is totally engrossing.
One thing to know - MANDINGO wasn't sanitized for a delicate audience like many of the complainers here would like. It's a look at the deep south as it was. If you want to see what GONE WITH THE WIND was too racist & cowardly to say, then I recommend viewing this motion picture.
Customer Rating:
Summary: "The horror... The horror."
Comment: It seems fitting to headline my review of 'Mandingo' with the last words of the dying Kurtz in Joseph Conrad's 'Heart Of Darkness', because it also aptly sums up my response not only to the unfortunately accurate nature of the numerous atrocities depicted in this generally effective and unflinching film, but also my response to a significant number of the other customer reviews.
I have to say I was truly shocked at how many viewers responded with derisive amusement, laughter, and even a weird kind of delight to this frankly brutal, harsh, and, yes, often lurid look at the brutal, harsh, and often lurid reality that was the evil institution known as "slavery" -- a system which dehumanized and degraded everything it touched, and which nearly destroyed a nation. (Much as the Nazis' "Final Solution" would do a century later, only with more systematic efficiency, and with global repercussions.)
And this is to be regarded as a fitting subject for MIRTH? Well, perhaps if you lack a modicum of compassion, or even a rudimentary frame of reference with regard to black history. Admit it -- if this film had been about the Holocaust and had depicted the torture and gassing of Jews instead of the beating and lynching of slaves you would NOT have laughed, would you? At least I HOPE you wouldn't!
Face it, this is a particular chapter of history that is simply too close to home and too uncomfortable for many white Americans (which I, also, with some degree of shame, admit to being) to fully acknowledge, much less stomach. Damn right this film is inflammatory, politically incorrect, offensive and salacious. It HAD to be if was to pretend to any level of accuracy with regard to even a semi-objective portrayal of slavery. And my particular star-rating has more to do with the films' refreshingly crude and repugnant portrayal of slavery rather than as an assessment of the film as a particular work of cinematic art.
Yes, I found a number of things to quibble with in 'Mandingo', both in terms of certain stylistic and technical details, as well as some of the writing and acting, though there is much to be admired there as well. But those aspects are really beside my point.
Basically, 'Mandingo' is what it is, admire it or loathe it. 'Song Of The South' or 'Gone With The Wind' it definitely ain't. But you can seek out those films too, if you're craving a cozier cinematic version of the pre and Civil-War-Era South to soothe your sensitive consciences.
Or, perhaps, in addition to 'Mandingo', you might consider seeing 'The Autobiography Of Miss Jane Pittman', 'Roots', 'Amistad', 'Beloved' or 'Manderlay'. That is IF you're willing to wake up and smell that good ol' plantation-grown coffee!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great movie, but edited
Comment: I love this movie. However, it's been remastered (revised/edited). The original, "unedited" version is the version that I wanted and thought that I'd ordered - Needless to say, I was highly disappointed. The pure essence of this movie's core is some what diluted through it's revision.
Customer Rating:
Summary: ON HUSBANDS FAVORITE LIST
Comment: I purchased for my husband. He has always liked this movie. I don't care for the story line so much - only because it I don't care for the way people were treated in this movie line. I am sure that this is what happened in time back when, but it is a good thing that will knowledge people know better.
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