Mandingo

Released by: Olive Films
Released on: October 27th, 2015.
Director: Richard Fleischer
Cast: James Mason, Perry King, Susan George, Richard Ward, Brenda Sykes, Ken Norton
Year: 1975
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The Movie:

While the soft focus cover art on this DVD may conjure up images of a romantic tale set in the colonial days of the Deep South, Mandingo is anything but. The picture follows Warren Maxwell (James Mason) and his son, Hammond (Perry King) who operate a rundown plantation and who own a substantial amount of slaves. Warren uses a young slave boy as a cushion for his feet, to remove the arthritis that bothers him, while Hammond sleeps with any of the slave 'wenches' that catch his fancy.

Soon, Hammond marries his cousin Blanche (Susan George) and, to please his father, buys a male 'Mandingo' slave to bring home. They hope slave, named Mede (Ken Norton), will breed and also train to be a fighter. Things are going well until Hammond becomes upset over the fact that his wife was not a virgin on their wedding night. Keeping in mind that Hammond is spending more time with his mistress, a slave named Ellen (Brenda Sykes) than with his wife, Blanche soon buries her sorrow in a bottle. While the slaves crave their freedom, Mede trains while the Maxwells' problems soon come to a boiling point...

Based on the novel by Kyle Onstott which was in turn based on the stage play by Jack Kirkland, director Richard Fleischer's film is an unusually disturbing mix of soap opera melodramatics and grisly (if likely understated) exploitative violence. In what we can only assume was an attempt to make a realistic picture, the slaves are treated pretty horribly here and there are more than a few unsettling scenes demonstrating their misfortune at the hands of their privileged white masters. This makes for a strange paradox, as it appears that the picture really was striving for historical accuracy and in many ways it seems to achieve that - but it's offset by overacting and excess.

At the same time, to the film's credit, it does make you think and it was one of the first pictures to really tackle this kind of material full strength. Parts of the film work well and do get under your skin and the viewer absolutely does sympathize with the black characters in the film. Perry King's character, as conflicted as he is, does at least show some genuine humanity and his performance here is good. It's hard not to feel sorry for Susan George's Blanche either, as her husband is such a complete hypocrite, but the real victims in the film are the slaves and despite the unfortunate things that are piled on the Maxwell's as the film plays out, their suffering is nothing compared to that of their slaves and on top of that it's pretty much all self-induced.

The film is shot well and shooting the picture on location in Louisiana certainly adds an air of authenticity to the picture. The whole film feels sweaty and dirty, a tone that suits the content of the film quite well.

Video/Audio/Extras:

Mandingo arrives on Blu-ray from Olive looking quite good framed at 1.78.1 widescreen and in AVC encoded 1080p high definition. There's a little bit of print damage here and there but nothing too major and really not all that distracting. Detail is substantially improved over the past DVD release and color reproduction more lifelike and accurate though some scenes do show some occasional fading. Black levels look good, there's decent depth to the picture and skin tones look plenty realistic. There aren't any problems with compression artifacts, edge enhancement or noise reduction here.

The only audio option on the disc is a DTS-HD Mono mix in the film's native English. There are no alternate language options provided nor are there any subtitles offered. Dialogue stays clean, clear and perfectly audible throughout and there are no noticeable issues with any hiss or distortion. There's not a huge amount of range here but there's enough that the score has good presence to it.

There are no extras on the disc outside of a static menu and chapter selection.

The Final Word:

Mandingo is a still a surprisingly strong film that remains a shocking, if at times pretty exploitative, take on the issue of slavery. Olive Films' looks very good and sounds quite solid but if ever there was a film that should have had some extras to give the picture some context, this is it.

Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!