Black Eye | |
---|---|
Directed by | Jack Arnold |
Written by | Mark Haggard Jeff Jacks (Novel) |
Starring | Fred Williamson |
Cinematography | Ralph Woolsey |
Edited by | Gene Ruggiero |
Music by | Mort Garson |
Production companies | Pat Rooney Productions Jerry Buss Presentations |
Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 98 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Black Eye [1] is a 1974 [2] American neo-noir [3] action and blaxploitation film produced by Pat Rooney, [4] directed by Jack Arnold and starring Fred Williamson. [5] The film was based on the 1971 novel Murder on the Wild Side by Jeff Jacks. [6]
A Los Angeles private investigator, Stone, is enlisted to investigate multiple murders that are connected to a cane that was stolen from a deceased silent movie star. [7] Stone is drawn into intrigues involving a young woman who has run away from home to join a religious cult, and ultimately uncovers a heroin ring. [8]
Black Eye, originally entitled simply Stone (the protagonist’s name), was conceived as “a Raymond Chandler-style detective story," and is set in Santa Monica and Venice, California. [13] Director Jack Arnold shot the entire movie on location, none which was filmed in a studio. Arnold’s “speed and efficiency” in executing the picture earned him high praise from producer Pat Rooney, who thanked Arnold publicly in a promotional advertisement in The Hollywood Reporter. [14]
Black Eye was released in April 1974, and targeted exclusively toward black audiences in order to capitalize on the recent slew of “black exploitation films” such as Shaft (1971) and Super Fly (1972). [15]
In a contemporary review for the Los Angeles Times , critic Kevin Thomas called the film a "modest, entertaining private detective caper" and wrote: "If 'Black Eye' ... lacks both originality and individuality it is nonetheless serviceable, mainly credible and not unduly violent." Thomas also praised Williamson, who "continues to impress in one of his best opportunities to date." [16]
Biographer and film critic Dana M. Reemes registered this assessment of Black Eye:
Staging and performances are good, but the film’s major attraction is the excellent location work...The sleazy ambience of the Venice boardwalk is used to great effect, and there is a spectacular car chase over the Venice canals reputedly shot surreptitiously without police permits. [17]
Reemes adds: “The irony is that Black Eye would have probably made more money for Warner Bros. if it had not been targeted solely at a black audience.” [18]
Frederick Robert Williamson, nicknamed "the Hammer", is an American actor, filmmaker, and former professional football defensive back who played mainly in the American Football League (AFL) during the 1960's. He was a top sports star during the decade, and become a leading man in blaxploitation and action films beginning in the 1970's.
James Milton Kelly was an American athlete, martial artist, and actor. After winning several karate championships, Kelly rose to fame in the early 1970s appearing in various action films within the martial arts and blaxploitation genres. Kelly played opposite Bruce Lee in 1973's Enter the Dragon, and had lead roles in 1974's Black Belt Jones as the title character and Three the Hard Way as Mister Keyes.
Jack Arnold was an American film and television director, considered one of the leading filmmakers of 1950s science fiction films. His most notable films are It Came from Outer Space (1953), Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), Tarantula (1955), and The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957).
Uptown Saturday Night is a 1974 American action comedy and crime comedy film, written by Richard Wesley and directed by and starring Sidney Poitier, with Bill Cosby and Harry Belafonte co-starring. Cosby and Poitier teamed up again for Let's Do It Again (1975) and A Piece of the Action (1977). Although Cosby's and Poitier's characters have different names in each film, the three films are considered a trilogy. Uptown Saturday Night premiered on June 15, 1974, at the Criterion Theatre in New York and opened to positive reviews.
BaadAsssss Cinema is a 2002 TV documentary film directed by Isaac Julien. Julien looks at the Blaxploitation era of the 1970s in this hour-long documentary.
Black Caesar is a 1973 American blaxploitation crime drama film written and directed by Larry Cohen and starring Fred Williamson, Gloria Hendry and Julius Harris. It features a musical score by James Brown, his first experience with writing music for film. A sequel titled Hell Up in Harlem was released in late 1973.
Hell Up in Harlem is a 1973 blaxploitation American neo-noir film, starring Fred Williamson and Gloria Hendry. Written and directed by Larry Cohen, it is a sequel to the film Black Caesar.
D'Urville Martin was an American actor in both film and television. He appeared in numerous 1970s movies in the blaxploitation genre. He also appeared in two unaired pilots of what would become All in the Family as Lionel Jefferson. Born in New York City, Martin began his career in the mid-1960s and soon appeared in prominent films such as Black Like Me, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, and Rosemary's Baby. Martin also directed films in his career, including Dolemite, starring Rudy Ray Moore.
Boss Nigger is a 1975 blaxploitation Western film directed by Jack Arnold, starring former football player Fred Williamson, who also wrote and co-produced the film. It is the first film for which Williamson was credited as screenwriter or producer.
Hammer is a 1972 blaxploitation film directed by Bruce D. Clark. The film was released following the successes of Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song and Shaft, notable 1971 films that popularized black cinema. It starred Fred Williamson as B.J. Hammer. Williamson went on to become a staple of the genre.
Rosemary Forsyth is a Canadian-born American actress. She made her big screen debut in the 1965 Western film Shenandoah, for which she received Golden Globe Award nomination for New Star of the Year – Actress. Forsyth later starred in films The War Lord (1965), Texas Across the River (1966), Where It's At (1969), What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice? (1969), Some Kind of a Nut (1969), How Do I Love Thee? (1970), Black Eye (1974) and Gray Lady Down (1978).
Blaxploitation is an ethnic subgenre of the exploitation film that emerged in the United States during the early 1970s, when the combined momentum of the civil rights movement, the black power movement, and the Black Panthers spurred African-American artists to reclaim the power of depiction of their ethnicity, and institutions like UCLA to provide financial assistance for African-American students to study filmmaking. This combined with Hollywood adopting a less restrictive rating system in 1968. The term, a portmanteau of the words "black" and "exploitation", was coined in August 1972 by Junius Griffin, the president of the Beverly Hills–Hollywood NAACP branch. He claimed the genre was "proliferating offenses" to the black community in its perpetuation of stereotypes often involved in crime. After the race films of the 1940s and 1960s, the genre emerged as one of the first in which black characters and communities were protagonists, rather than sidekicks, supportive characters, or victims of brutality. The genre's inception coincides with the rethinking of race relations in the 1970s.
Hello Down There is a 1969 American comedy-adventure film starring Tony Randall and Janet Leigh that was released by Paramount Pictures. It was produced by George Sherman and Ivan Tors and directed by Jack Arnold and Ricou Browning. The screenplay was written by John McGreevey and Frank Telford.
The Man from Bitter Ridge is a 1955 American Western film directed by Jack Arnold and starring Lex Barker, Mara Corday and Stephen McNally.
The Tattered Dress is a 1957 American CinemaScope film noir crime film released by Universal Pictures and directed by Jack Arnold. It stars Jeff Chandler, Jeanne Crain, Jack Carson, Gail Russell and Elaine Stewart.
A Global Affair is a 1964 American comedy film directed by Jack Arnold and starring Bob Hope, Michèle Mercier, Yvonne De Carlo and Elga Andersen.
The Mouse That Roared is a 1959 British satirical comedy film on a Ban The Bomb theme, based on Leonard Wibberley's novel The Mouse That Roared (1955). It stars Peter Sellers in three roles: Duchess Gloriana XII; Count Rupert Mountjoy, the Prime Minister; and Tully Bascomb, the military leader; and co-stars Jean Seberg. The film was directed by Jack Arnold, and the screenplay was written by Roger MacDougall and Stanley Mann.
That Man Bolt is a 1973 American action film directed by David Lowell Rich and Henry Levin. It stars Fred Williamson in the title role of a courier and Byron Webster. The film combined several genres: blaxploitation, the martial arts film, and James Bond superspy films. It was filmed in Hong Kong, Macau and the United States and featured several martial arts experts in action: Mike Stone, World Professional Light Heavyweight Karate Champion, Kenji Kazama Japan Kickboxing Champion, Emil Farkas, European Black Belt Karate Champion, and David Chow, Former California State Judo Champion. It was titled Operation Hong Kong outside the United States. Peter Crowcroft wrote the novelization of the screenplay.
William Wellman Jr. is an American former actor. In a career spanning 65 years, he appeared in about 77 films and television series.