Soul Vengeance

You wouldn't like him when he's angry. Then again, maybe you would.

1975

Review: October 5, 2007

Director: Jamaa Fanaka

Starring: Marlo Monte, Reatha Grey, Stan Kamber, Tiffany Peters, Ben Bigelow

Definitely.

THE SETUP:

Black guy strangles his enemies with his enormous cock.

DISCUSSION:

When you’ve got a movie about a black guy who gets revenge on his enemies by strangling them with his giant cock, you’ve got my attention. I make it my business to keep up with matters pertaining to enormous penises. So when I read a review saying what this movie was about, of course it was next on my list. The review I read, however, derided how terrible it was, mistaking its attempts toward artiness as achievements in badness. So it was a pleasant surprise to find that as a movie, it’s better that I would have thought.

First we learn that this is a Bea-Bob production from 1975, then have credits while we see an African-style carved figure with an enormous erect wang. Now we see a guy on a roof, about to jump. His wife is brought to talk him down, and from this point the entire movie is a flashback detailing how we arrived here.

We meet Twyla, who is working the streets in front of a hot dog stand. We then meet her pimp, Charles, who tells her to go out and make him some money. Then another of his women tries to talk to him, and he tells her to go out and make him some money. That seems to be all he has to say. He hops in his car and goes to a motel, where some sort of “drop” is supposed to take place. He’s angry at his partner, ND, for driving a big, attention-getting Cadillac to the fleabag motel. Soon they find that the cops are watching them, and they take off in different directions. One cop runs after them, but can’t get his gun out of his pants [in more ways than one, as we shall see], so he goes over and performs a random act of violence against garbage cans. But the other cops have caught Charles, and bring him to the blond with the gun problem, Harry Freeman. Get it? Harry is a free man. Some woman, this is Carmen, shows up and tries to divert attention so Charles can go, but Harry and another cop take him in.

So the other cop, Jim, who looks like Robert Forster, is driving in to the station when Harry exhorts him to pull over into an alley so he can beat Charles. He does, quite ferociously, working himself up into an ecstasy of hatred. It’s quite sexual. He then tells Charles he wants to “make sure you don’t bring any more of you into this world,” takes out a knife, and does something really bad to Charles’ penis. Of course we would imagine that he cuts it off, but I believe we’re supposed to think he just wounds it. The other one, by the way, is our “good” cop because he only pulled over so the beating / maiming could take place, but didn’t beat Charles himself. He tells Harry he’s acting like he isn’t getting any at home. So I was into it so far, because of its thesis that this white cop has turned his sexual frustration into racial hatred, and gets erotic pleasure out of beating and abusing blacks, whose sexual potency he feels inadequate to. Not that I support that, but it’s an interesting conceit.

Soon we get evidence that what Jim speculates about Harry's home life might be true, as Harry is out at the airport defusing a bomb while ND [at least I THINK it was ND] is at Harry's house, making hot love to his wife. I feel bad saying this—because of the old prejudicial comment about how blacks all look alike—but I had a LOT of trouble telling who was who from scene to scene. Mostly because of things like it's hard to believe that our hero was an asshole pimp at the beginning, and it makes more sense that it would be him with Harry's wife [who we didn't find out was related to Harry in any way until later], but I think Charles was in custody then. So I'm a little sketchy on details. Anyway, the bomb defusing and lovemaking are intercut, especially as we approach orgasm / defusing. There are also, quite inexplicably, more than one shot of a root beer can lying in the street. Harry returns home and we see that relations between he and his wife are somewhat rocky, especially given that he essentially calls her "contaminated." I'm not straight, but I get the sense that women don't really like that. Things get worse, and eventually Harry is strangling his wife until she passes out! You would be forgiven for wondering how this coiled-up ball of rage manages to keep a job.

SPOILERS > > >
Anyway, it's Charles' day in court, but I don't think his exploding and calling Harry a "lying motherfucker" is going to help his case, especially when presented in lieu of evidence. This leads to Harry being personally commended by the judge. The racist system! There then follows a long, LONG walk down a prison hallway as we hear the 'theme from Soul Vengeance,' which we learned from the credits was composed by Jamaa Fanaka, the director. It sounds like a conch trying to sound like a foghorn. Then we switch to—still photographs! These are to represent Charles' time in prison. We then switch back to film to see him freaking out from life in the slammer, then back to still photographs, and then one of them transitions to a similar shot as he walks down the street—he's free. It was all a very low-budget effect, i.e. it was NO effect, but I thought it worked pretty well. So far, the tone of the whole thing has been very artsy and intense. Speaking of that, we now have a pretty funky song on the soundtrack while we see shots of the ghetto wasteland. The song is called "Junkie Fields" [or "Junkie Fear?" couldn't make out], and it slows down as the shots expand in subject matter to include a bunch of figures in the black community.

Well, now Charles wants to go straight, no more drug dealing [he was dealing dugs, too??], but his friend won't hear of it. He also finds out that Twyla is "working bottomless over at the Pioneer." We see her dance routine, featuring her signature left-then-right dance moves [she does manage a nice big smile, though], then find out that she is now ND's woman, and ND is not willing to share. Twyla sits there at the table, a completely subjugated woman, showing no reaction or preference whatsoever as the two men argue over her fate. Charles loses, and for good measure, ND dispatches two of his men to beat the shit out of him, sending him into the arms of his badly-wigged mother.

Now perhaps you're asking "Uh, so when is this guy going to attack someone with his penis?" but relax, it's coming. First we see some more entirely demure, fully-clothed dance moves by the happy, happy Twyla, then he gets rescued out of a bad bar tab saga by Carmen, the woman who protected him back when he was arrested! They fall into a relationship where her contribution is to pick up the Chinese food on the way home, and his contribution is to agree to eat it. The first glimmers we get of something that might be giant-penis related is Charles going to the doctor and talking about "his case."

So then Charles goes over to Harry's wife's house and whips out the massive schlong, which actually hypnotizes her and places her under his mind control. I have to say it's been a while since I've had one of THOSE nights. Then there's another lengthy topless routine by a woman who is a pretty good dancer, while Charles and Harry's wife make it to this song called "Imagine You." Then Charles goes to see the prosecutor of his case, who one barely remembers from the movie, and who hardly seems to merit death above some of the other folks we've met, but anyway, finally we get some giant cock action. Charles does the hypno-thing on the wife again, then goes into the prosecutor's bedroom. We see his cock grow straight down. It gets longer [but not thicker] and creeps across the prosecutor's bed like a snake. The prosecutor obligingly declines to move. Eventually the thing grows to about fifteen feet, wraps around the prosecutor's neck, and strangles the guy. You might be surprised that one might see this in a movie, but "see" is a very generous description. Almost everything during these final scenes is poorly shot, shoddily edited, and cloaked in darkness. For example, see that diagonal line at the bottom of the shot below? That's Charles' cock. Now, would you have known that if I hadn't just told you? It soon ends up back on the roof, "good" cop Jim [remember him?] having figured out what's going on, and coming in to talk Charles out of his anger. Now we're back at the moment we arrived at in the beginning, and Charles' wife reveals why she will probably NOT be getting a job on a suicide prevention hotline.
< < < SPOILERS END

I was thinking it quite odd that some of the people you would think were prime targets for revenge were seemingly ignored, and some of the people who didn't seem to matter much get cock-choked—and not even in a fun way. The whole thing also gets notably more incoherent toward the end. I was prepared to think that this was just inexperienced filmmaking, but it turns out—according to some random user on the IMDb—that this movie has been butchered in its current incarnation, a LOT of the interesting and "offensive" content taken out. This person says that its original incarnation, when it was known as Welcome Back, Brother Charles, was one of the most purposely outrageous and shocking movies ever. Given how this one turned out, that makes a LOT of sense. I am obviously now obsessed to see the other version, but thus far I'm not finding any avenues. By the way, Jamaa Fanaka also directed the well-regarded Penitentiary series, and Black Sister's Revenge.

So is what's left here worth watching? Kind of. Especially if you don't know that you're watching an incomplete film… but now you know… Anyway, I liked it because it had some interesting and incendiary ideas up front, like the whole idea that Harry beats up Charles because he's not getting any at home, that he seems to get a sexual charge out of it, and that he takes his anger out directly on Charles' dick. So it has this whole idea about racial hatred and how that is played out in a sexual vein, which is great, but now I know that I only saw half the idea, I can't help but be a little disappointed. I want to see the whole thing! I'm gonna find that shit.

SHOULD YOU WATCH IT?

If you want, it could be worse—although, some would argue, not by much. It's hard to get motivated to watch once you know that the most interesting material has been removed.