 Movie
trailers are an artform unto themselves, one that's changed
and continues to develop even as the art of motion pictures
has changed and developed over time. Other Cinema's Afro
Promo: Black Cinema Trailers 1946-1976 clearly exhibits
this. Not so much a documentary as a video "exhibit"
of various types of movie trailers, Afro Promo focuses on the various changes that permeated Black-oriented
films made between 1951 and 1977 (the DVD title alludes to
the original inclusion of the trailer for Walt Disney's Song
of the South, which is not present here, ostensibly
due to legal issues with the Mouse House; although the trailers
do end around 1976, there's one title, A Piece of
the Action, which came out in early 1977).
 Designed
to be viewed either continuously or in separate chapters, Afro Promo displays a very interesting cross
section of film genres, from sports films such as the Phil
Brown-directed (yup, Luke Skywalker's Uncle Owen himself) The Harlem Globetrotters (1951) and the film
adaptation of the Jack Johnson-inspired Broadway play The
Great White Hope (1970), to music-oriented films
like the '50s’ gem St. Louis Blues (1958; Nat "King" Cole as jazz legend W.C. Handy,
with an impressive cast of Black music giants) and the Curtis
Mayfield-scored Sparkle (1976; featuring
a young Irene Cara and future Miami Vice star Philip Michael Thomas), to historical dramas like Cy
Endfield's British vs. African war film ZULU (1964) and Richard Fleischer's non-PC Southern plantation
potboiler Mandingo (1975; there's a pun in
there), to midcentury then-cutting edge race  relations
dramas like 1956's Edge of the City (with
John Cassavetes and Sidney Poitier, both early in their careers)
and the strange but funny Robert Downey Sr.-directed Putney
Swope (1969), to film adaptations of novels or plays
by Black authors like Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin
in the Sun (1961) and Gordon Parks Jr.'s The
Learning Tree (1969), to '70s comedies like the beloved Cooley High (1975; often referred to as the
Black American Graffiti), the Redd Foxx-Pearl
Bailey sexual revolution vehicle Norman....Is That
You? (1976) to the ensemble favorite Car
Wash (also 1976), and of course, a number of 70s’
Blaxploitation features such as the Thalmus Rasulala-starring
stickin'-it-to-the-Man heist drama Cool Breeze (1972), the delightful comic bookish cheesefest Cleopatra
Jones (1973), and of course, everbody's favorite
Black Power sista, Foxy Brown (1974).
 Although
unfortunately many of the trailers have not been preserved,
let alone restored (splice cuts, scratches, splotches, and
faded audio and film are quite evident in many cases), what's
most interesting about Afro Promo is the
fact that "curators" Jenni Olson and Karl Knapper
have included some rather obscure and little-seen films like
formerly blacklisted director Herbert Biberman's slavery-era
drama Slaves (1969; where the late Ossie
Davis literally gets whipped and Dionne Warwick, of all people,
gets to offer up wince-inducing lines like "I am black...and
comely. Black....as the African day" to slavemaster Stephen
Boyd), Henry Hathaway's 1967 The Last Safari (where elephant hunter Stewart Granger  tries
to convince formula "white hero" Kaz Garas that
he should pick an available topless African maiden or three
when some native men decide they'd like to play hide the faumbwebwe
with clearly bra-less and horny-for-dark-meat former Bond
girl Gabriella Licudi, while Senegalese Wayfarer-bespectacled
supporting actor Johnny Sekka gets chased and stomped on by
a rear-projection elephant).
Names and faces both famous and unknown populate the various
films. Respected thespians like Sidney Poitier and James Earl
Jones are both featured several times, while lesser known
but no less talented actors like Cicely Tyson and Paul Winfield
(in Martin Ritt's 1972 classic Sounder) and
comedians like Bill Cosby (who addresses the audience at length
in the trailer for 1977's A Piece of the Action,
with Poitier and Jones) and Richard  Pryor
(in Car Wash and John Badham's 1976 sports
dramedy The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor
Kings with Billy Dee Williams) pop up as well. Trailers
for the works of Black directors, such as Gordon Parks Jr.'s
aforementioned The Learning Tree and the
late Ossie Davis' neglected gem Black Girl (1972; with Brock Peters and the terrific Claudia McNeil),
allow us a glimpse of films mostly ignored in their time and
virtually forgotten today (both have yet to come to video
or DVD and are very rarely seen even on cable), a troublesome
reminder that only in recent years have Black directors made
considerable strides in Hollywood.
Overall, Afro Promo provides us with an
interesting hour and a half of cinematic history, but it's
far from extensive or put into any clear context; Olson and
Knapper seem content with leaving any lessons or points from
the trailers up to the audience to find. While this allows
a  certain
freedom of interpretation, it also unfortunately renders much
of any intended subtext of the presentation silent, and the
presentation of the trailers somewhat meandering, with little
rhyme or reason for the titles chosen, let alone any narrative.
This results in a somewhat diminished final work, one which
makes it seem at times that Olson and Knapper just grabbed
whatever Black-oriented movie trailers they could get and
slapped them together and called it a collection. We're also
robbed of any idea of how these trailers worked on either
Black or White audiences of their day, or any sense of historical
perspective regarding their cinematic impact. Instead we're
left hungry for answers to the questions that arise from viewing
the collection. In some ways this is good, as it sparks a
thirst for knowledge, but at the same time it seems as though Afro Promo is unfinished or not well thought-out.
 Disc
Presentation
Sadly, this is one area where the budget is most
painfully evident; most of the trailers are in various stages
of aging, and in some cases decomposition, and appear to have
been used extensively. Splice cuts, scratches, splotches,
and faded prints are impossible to miss, as the trailers are
presented completely unrestored. While none are unwatchable,
and some are actually in good condition (perhaps the best
is Black Girl), the lack of any restoration
could be a turn off for some; personally I think it adds a
bit to their retro charm. The audio is exclusively mono, and
it sounds pretty decent given the source material.
Extras
Along with the various trailers presented, Afro Promo presents two independent short films that are somewhat related
to the general topic: Roger Beebe's humorous Hi-Def video Famous Irish Americans (2003), which "proves",
with tongue firmly planted in cheek, that Black Americans
with Irish last names (such as Shaquille O'Neal) are actually
Irish Americans; and Christopher Harris'disturbingly
mind-bending non-narrative 16mm film Reckless Eyeballing (2004), which takes its name from the Jim-Crow-era prohibition
against black men looking at white women, and explores, through
the use of imagery from mostly Foxy Brown and Birth of a Nation, issues of sexual desire,
racial identity, and film history. Both of these are rather
solid extras that add value to Afro Promo as a whole.
Overall
Afro Promo is one
of those titles that's better appreciated as a film reference
collection than anything else. Trailer fans, and especially
collectors, will LOVE it. The average viewer might consider
it a bit too esoteric or pointless for their tastes, however.
I enjoyed it, but I'd really only recommend it to those interested
in Black cinema, film history, and media portrayals of people
of color.
|
