Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song

Plot synopsis:
A young African American orphan (Mario Van Peebles) is taken in by the proprietor of a Los Angeles brothel in the 1940s. While working there as a towel boy, he loses his virginity at a young age to one of the prostitutes. The women name him "Sweet Sweetback" in honor of his sexual prowess and large penis. As an adult, Sweetback (Melvin Van Peebles) works as a performer in the whorehouse, entertaining customers by performing in a sex show.
One night, a pair of LAPD officers come in to speak to Sweetback's boss, Beetle (Simon Chuckster). A black man had been murdered, and there is pressure from the black community to bring in a suspect. The police ask permission to arrest Sweetback, blame him for the crime, and then release him a few days later for lack of evidence, in order to appease the black community. Beetle agrees, and the officers arrest Sweetback. On the way to the police station, the officers arrest a young Black Panther named Mu-Mu (Hubert Scales). They handcuff him to Sweetback, but when Mu-Mu insults the officers, they take both men out of the car, undo the handcuff from Mu-Mu's wrist, and beat him. In response, Sweetback uses the handcuffs, still hanging from his wrist, to beat the officers into unconsciousness.
Sweetback makes a flight through South Central Los Angeles towards the United States–Mexico border, but is captured by the police. Sweetback is violently interrogated about his previous assault on the arresting officers, but escapes when a riot breaks out. Sweetback then goes to a woman who cuts his handcuffs off in exchange for sex. With his handcuffs off, Sweetback continues onward, only to be captured by a chapter of the Hells Angels. The female leader of the gang is impressed by the size of Sweetback's penis, and agrees to help him and Mu-Mu escape from the police in exchange for sex. The police find Sweetback and Mu-Mu at the bikers' hangout, but Sweetback escapes on foot while Mu-Mu goes away with the bikers. Mu-Mu and one of the bikers (John Amos) are killed.
After his escape from the bikers' hangout, a white man sympathetic to Sweetback's cause agrees to switch clothes with him, allowing the usually velour-clad Sweetback to blend in. The police find Sweetback's former foster mother, who reveals that Sweetback's birth name is Leroy. The chase concludes in the desert, where L.A. Police send several hunting dogs after Sweetback, who fights them back and continues running. Sweetback makes it into the Tijuana River and escapes into Mexico, swearing to return to "collect dues".

Tags: violence, cult, avant garde, murder, blaxploitation

Review:
Considered the first blaxploitation film, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song features Melvin Van Peebles (who also directed, wrote, produced, edited and did music for the film) as Sweetback, a Los Angeles-area "male prostitute"/"sex performer" (who only has relations with females).
In terms of quality, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song gets my vaunted 5 out of 10 rating, which is usually reserved for "so bad they're good" films.
Peebles also frequently layers musical tracks, so two or more can be playing at once for a minute or two.The film is also notable and admirable for its abundance of almost graphic sex scenes and gratuitous nudity.
We need much more of this kind of material in contemporary films.At one point, Peebles and/or director of photography Robert Maxwell appear to have hit the streets of Los Angeles, filming people at random after they asked them if they've seen Sweetback (the character).
The sound is awful--I couldn't make out about half of the dialogue (at one point I thought "this is more like watching a silent film"), and it doesn't help that some characters "jive talk"; if ever a film needed subtitles, it's this one.
A lot of shots--scenery, cityscapes, etc.--look like they may have been randomly taken by Peebles with his home camera with the hopes of one day using them in a film.Still, for fans of weirdness and "so bad they're good" films, not to mention any blaxploitation fan with his or her weight in barbecued ribs, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song is a must see.
Make sure you also check out How to Get the Man's Foot Outta Your Ass (aka Baadasssss!), Peebles' son Mario's 2003 film about Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song..
It took some pretty strong courage to make this move when you consider the time frame that it came out in; the early seventies, a period that saw a shift from "I have a dream" to "By any means necessary." I believe this film opened the doors to allow black artistic media to be critical about white America, society, politics and corruption that generally would have been censored before.
My father, a white man, told me that when he went to see this film back in 1971, the audience screamed and cheered during the opening scene when across the screen it read to "all the Brothers and Sisters who are tired of being held down by the Man." Nowadays people wouldn't really respond to that, not even black society I don't think, but back then it could have gotten you lynched, even in 1971.
So when people screamed and cheered in the movie theater when they saw this, I think you can imagine how important a film like this must be in film history.
Sweet Sweetback's Baad Asssss Song (1971) was a independent marvel from Melvin Van Peebles.
According to Mr. Peebles, after the surprise success of this film, the producers of SHAFT changed his character into a black man.
They wanted him to doctor some scripts and make them "black" (the term he used can be found in his back about the making and selling of Sweet Sweetback's Baad Asssss Song (1971).
That a black man can make a unique film without the restraints of the studio system and not have to answer to investors and anxious producers.I have to give a hand to Mr. Van Peebles.
That said, technically Sweetback isn't a blaxploitation film at all as it was financed and produced entirely by a black man.
Since their construction is so obvious, it is not the same as the way blacks were portrayed in a film like "Birth of a Nation." Melvin Van Peebles put this thing together by himself (with a little monetary help from Bill Cosby), and while the technical quality is not exactly Hollywood, neither is the content.
The film makes it clear that white men are all racist jerks and have no problem with killing black guys.
I wonder how grown-up Mario feels about his own father having done this to him?The film is certainly anti-white, but I fail to see how anyone can call it pro-black.
You'd have a hard time finding a worse depiction of black life than this one -- where the main characters perform kinky sex shows for groups of leering onlookers, just to take one example.The director's attitude towards women is despicable.
In spite of this reputation, few have actually seen it.The truth is that SWEET SWEETBACK'S BAAD ASSSSS SONG, in spite of the good intentions of its message, is poorly made pornographic trash.
Not too much time goes by before we see grown up Sweetback (director Melvin Van Peebles) performing in a live sex show.
There are a number of scenes where the cops are asking members of the black community (the film's real star) as to the whereabouts of Sweetback.
1st watched 4/22/2001 - 8 out of 10 (Dir-Melvin Van Peebles): Important film for the black community because it portrays the realities of how in many places blacks were treated by whites.
The film is paced by the Director like a journey that we as the viewers are on as we follow Sweetback as he runs from the police and meets up with various friends, lovers etc.(not unlike a road picture) after he killed a couple of white cops  who unfairly beat up a black brother.
Sweet sweetback's baadasssss song IMO should get an award as worst film ever made ,so Bad asssss it will make you physically sick, maybe the idea was to get stoned and then view it.
Such films like ' "manos the hands of fate" in comparison seem classic.The films sound score contains a single song played monotonously throughout that doesn't make a soundtrack as for great camera work all vomit,the main character seems to always end up in meaningless orgies because of his sexual prowess but the scenes lack any imagination strictly missionary and aren't erotic, there's a meaningless chase scene which you cant really tell who he's running from.The film ends abruptly, the producer must have run out of money ,give a monkey a film camera and you'd end up with a better movie.I disliked this film because it seems devoid of developed characters and plot it felt as if the story was conceived as the filmed rolled.IF you want to watch a true blaxploitation classic I recommend "hitman.".
reading others reviews of this film, I find myself both agreeing to some degree, and alternately being in complete disagreement."sweet sweetback" is a confusing movie.
(A.K.A. How to Get the Man's Foot Outta Your Ass), made by the directors son, Mario Van Peebles.It is very easy for a modern audience to perhaps overlook this film as one of the slew of 'Blaxpliotation' films produced in the 70s, however this stands out firstly as virtually the originator of that mode of films, and as a crusade for a young, talented black artist and director to make a film that is both honest and challenging about the representation of black people in cinema.If nothing else you must respect Melvin Van Peebles for the Guerrilla film making techniques that created this movie.This film is a great argument for the importance to minority groups within any society to gain access to and control of media production in order to challenge dominant ideologies and representations put forward in mainstream media.It is also virtually impossible to view Baadasssss!
Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song is Melvin Van Peebles harsh, incisive, intentional baffling and revolutionary take on the black experience in America.
Sure, it shows the film's hero (and believe you-me, Van Peebles IS a bad-ass hero, at least in some circles) having sex with a LOT of women, mostly black and some white thrown in at random moments, and it has a completely one-sided view on the Caucasian presence in America (either rabidly racist and crooked cops, or women with a 'craving' for the Sweetback, and the occasional bikers).
But it also intends to be a movie by black people, of black people, and FOR black people, to make what is intended as a statement on not just the image of African Americans in the country at the time, but what wasn't shown in movies at all.In this latter sense, Van Peebles is making an attempt, much like Godard did with his early films (particularly Breathless and My Life to Live), to break through and re-configure conventions into something that is kind of f***ed up, but is alive and interesting in ways that more expensive or resourceful movies would have.
Peebles makes his movies sort of out of junk-yard avant-garde parts, like some kind of garish vision taken in via superimpositions, montages, and a soundtrack as a combination of great Earth, Wind and Fire songs and a collage of voice-overs during Sweetback's run.
Peebles is also so intense with his camera- and rightfully so- that he lets his script sort of go into a better lack of focus; a lot of the time I only had a slight understanding of what was going on, and sometimes just not at all.This being said, it's a tremendous credit to Peebles as an independent filmmaker that the film even got finished; he had many production difficulties, as later chronicled in the film Bad Asssss.
First of all, the director of the movie didn't have a better idea that using his OWN LITTLE SON performing a simulated SEX SCENE, completely naked and moving on top of a naked middle-aged woman.
In the second place, the "hero" of the "movie" - Sweetback- is nothing but a prostitute and -as the story develops- a murderer running away from the police.
WOW!I loved this !!Melvin is a genius filmaker of his time ,and anybody who was there in his time knows there was only a little exageration in this.Much of America tried to ban this picture which the man not only stars in but directed and wrote.I recall that many critics not only dismissed the film ,but many said Peebles was insane .I feel he was crazy like a fox because in those days a Black man just did'nt finance a movie , certainly did'nt direct one and if he appeared in one he was usually serving something.The fact is movies reflect the society that create them ,and Sweetback is no different .Stunning in its intensity ,filled with colorful characters ,this is the film white America does'nt want you to see ,besides "Mandingo" perhaps .I got 3 copies as soon as I could.Melvin was a deep thinker and it shows ,this is hardly for young kids though .Run get a copy theres the directors cut out now!.
I saw this film on opening night in Philadelphia, Pa. The audience consisted of almost entirely young, Black men (mostly) and women who were obviously active in the civil rights movement,judging by the reactions of the men in the audience when Sweetback gave "the man" his definition of justice - beating the living crap out of them.
Melvin Van Peebles plays Sweetback, a radical who on the run after murdering some cops.
Director Melvin Van Peebles surpasses even Orson Welles in his attempt at the full-on auteur thing in Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, having written, produced, directed, scored, and starred in what is a fairly standard man-on-the-run film.
Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song is a film whose reputation is based almost entirely on its historical importance.
Director and star Melvin Van Peebles was nothing if not a visionary though, as this was the first film to tap into the African American audience in quite this way.
A sex show performer called Sweetback kills a couple of cops who are beating up a fellow black man and then goes on the run through South Central L.A. on his way to the Mexican border.
The women in the film seem to only exist for Sweetback to have sex with, while the often reported fact that Van Peebles was really having sex on film in these scenes is just too sleazy for me.This is definitely a landmark movie, though, there is no doubt about that.
It tells the troubled story of a male prostitute named Sweet Sweetback who, after witnessing police brutality against a fellow black man, beats up a police officer.
Now on the run from the law, Sweetback must do what he can to avoid and evade the police, even if that means involvement from the Hell's Angels and using his "talent".The big question is, how does the film hold up today?
This film is just good guys, meaning the black community, and the bad guys, meaning white police officers.
The film has a lot of radical imagery, and most of that comes when Sweetback is actually running from the man.
I'm not going to spoil any surprises, but I will say that somehow this film gets it right.When we first see Sweet Sweetback, he is only a little boy, played by Mario Van Peebles (Melvin's son), who appears hungry, dirty, tired, and starved.
I think, despite what you may think of Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, that this says more about independent film and black cinema than most films would have the balls to say.
Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971)** (out of 4)Male prostitute Sweetback (Melvin Van Peebles) gets tired of seeing a black man getting beaten by two white cops so he kills the cops.
Sweetback takes off trying to evade the police who are hot on his trail.Thanks to its classic title and the fact that it's a historically important film, SWEET SWEETBACK'S BAADASSSSS SONG has become somewhat of a folk/cult movie.
I'm sure a lot of people would watch this film today and call it all sorts of things but I think it's important that people realize that this was released just a few years after black people were still being beaten by the police and had water hoses turned on them.
There's no question that Melvin Van Peebles broke all sorts of new ground and he deserves a lot of credit delivering this type of movie.With that said, there's still no question that the film itself isn't all that good.
He's given very little dialogue but that look tells you everything you need to know.SWEET SWEETBACK'S BAADASSSSS SONG isn't a masterpiece but it deserves to be called a classic since it did break through so many new levels..
While it's a great time capsule of 60's attitudes towards sex, it comes across as more of a reason for Melvin to get it on with actresses.But apparently it didn't matter--the movie made money.
but back in the 60s the very *idea* of a film centered on a black hero on the run from some less-than-perfect police officers was enough to blow peoples' minds.
The movie has the occasional sex scene in it, no doubt all put in there so Melvin Van Peebles could allow himself to have some fun.
And believe me, at least some of the sex in this movie is real, since Melvin Van Peebles actually contracted gonorrhea from an 'actress' while shooting this movie.It was also weird seeing an 14-year old Mario Van Peebles having a sex scene in this, as a young Sweetback, with an adult woman.
At times it's really hard to say what's going on since the picture quality is too bad or a scene gets too dark at times to tell what's happening.I can most certainly appreciate and like a good old fashioned blaxploitation flick but this movie just isn't very good or fun to watch.4/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/.
But it's weird to think that a movie about racism had some stereotypes (namely, the sex scene portraying the black man as great in bed).
The plot of course has political activist Sweetback (Melvin Van Peebles) running from The Man after killing some cops who were attacking a Black Panther.
Director Melvin van Peebles (father to Mario), who also plays the eponymous hero, funded the project himself (with a little help from Bill Cosby), and the film went onto gross $4.1 million.
The film became required viewing for members of the Black Panthers, and Sweetback himself can be seen giving the Panther first sign.As socially and historically important as this film is, it's still not very good.
Whatever the case, Sweet Sweetback's Baad Assssssss Song came off to me as a vibrant exercise in bad taste, bad acting, a barely discernible plot, VERY bad editing, and lots of stupid, stupid white people.
When you watch the movie, you are there on the streets with the characters, you just have a hard time trying to follow what they're doing, what they're talking about, who's chasing who and why a black man is dancing on a stool while some idiot white guy stands directly behind him, staring at his backside and laughing hysterically.
The thing that really gets me is that white people are portrayed as so stupid and incompetent and endlessly idiotic in these movies, and yet at the same time they are the people who's power and influence black people simply cannot escape.
I had heard a lot about Sweet Sweetback's Baad Asssss Song over the years, but finally got to see it yesterday, 5-2-04.I have to say that I can see how it opened up a new genre..the Blaxploitation films.
It's powerful from the opening when we read about people in the black community oppressed by 'THE MAN'  to the end when Sweetback escapes safely to Mexico (after killing hound dogs)!There is a lot of symbolism as well.
There are a few things you need to know about this film before you see it: 1) It includes pretty graphic sex scenes, one of them featuring the director's teenage son Mario (in the first few minutes).
Van Peebles acts, produces, composes and directs well enough, despite the fact the film is rather weird, with all the sexual behaviour, violence and prostitution element but it is I suppose important in the history of filmmaking, as it does not (completely) stereotype black people, and it is a different non-mainstream film, a strange but kind of fascinating blaxploitation.