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About That Popular 'Black Films Don't Sell ..."The Slender Thread" and "Up Tight!" Coming Out On Blu-ray DVD In October
Thank God!
The latest case in point are two fascinating releases coming out on both standard and Blu-ray DVD in October from Olive Films which has been regularly releasing many older Paramount and other studio titles for the first time on DVD.
The first one is Syndey Pollack's 1965 film The Slender Thread with Sidney Poitier, Anne Bancroft and Telly Savalas which Tambay reviewed and discussed on S & A back in May abd which you can read HERE.
It's a well acted, solidly made, suspense drama in which Poitier plays an overnight voulinteer at a suicide prevention crisis center who spends the entire night trying to keep a unkonwn woman on the phone (Bancroft) from killing herslf. And having seen this film a couiple of times myself, I definitely agree with Tambay that it's well worth watching.
But the even more intriguing release, also coming out that month, is director Jules Dassin's rarely seen 1968 black revolutionary drama Up Tight! made by Paramount which was released in December 1968.
It's hard to imagine any major studio backing and releasing, let alone even this even thinking about, making a film like this today. And though it may look very dated and didactic today, it was quite cutting edge and shocking when it first came out. In fact the film even makes references to the Martin Luther King assasination which occured just 8 months earlier, so the film must have seemed as if it was made just the previous week to audiences back then.
So hot was this film that it has never even been released on VHS tape (execpt for some crappy bootleg copies) and I can't recall any TV broadcasts of the film unless it's been shown on cable TV at one time.
The film was actually a remake of John Fords's 1935 film The Informer in which an Irish Republican Army member informs on his freinds and his hunted down and eventually killed by them.
Dassin, had long had an idea to make a black adaptation of Ford's film, especially after the "black power" movement came into full bloom during the late 1960's. (Ahhhh... those were the good old days) But Dassin by then had already had share fair share of controversay,
He had been a major Hollywood studio film director making some terrfific tough crime dramas such as Brute Force, Night and the City and The Naked City, all three films "absolute must" viewing But by the early 1950's he had been blacklisted by Hollywood, along with many other directors, writers and actors, during Senator Joe McCarthy's and the Congressional House of Un-American Activities Committee "Red Scare" witch huint because of his leftist politics and left for Europe to continue his cacreer. He continued making films such as the classic heist film Rififi in France and the more comic version of it Topkapi in 1964, among other films.
Up Tight! was his only American made film after resettling in Europe (and after the "witch hunt" had died down and the alcoholic McCarthy totally discredited) shooting the film in Cleveland and Los Angeles. And the film starred what seemed like every important black actor and actress at the time (including Rudy Dee who also co-wrote the film with Dassin) except for Poitier and Harry Belafonte.
However Dassin, perhaps feeling he had been away from Hollywood too long and since his films, from the early 60's, were being financed by American studios, returned to Europe to continue his directing career. He passed away in 2008 at the age of 96 in Athens where he had made his home for many years.
But despite whatever faults it may have, I still think Up Tight! is an important film from what I still consider to be the most fascinating and maybe most important period in American filmmaking and well worth a look.
Check out the clip below from the film. Though obviously the image quality is pretty lousy, no doubt rest assured the blu-ray will look a whole lot better.
4 Comments
urbanauteur | July 23, 2012 6:52 PM
I was there...my hometown circa 1968 as a wide eyed, rusty butt kid soaking up the euphoria where this movie was being shot...this movie is [also] loosely base on the Cleveland Base - Black Nationalists with its bold leaders- Fred ahmed Evans,Derrill Hill, Harlell X and their infamous "Afro Set". Who are directly responsible with the Revolution Thrust and/orthat brought pressure to bare on the local powers that be(1966), to"then" its 1st Black Mayor of a Major -Metro City-Carl B.Stokes, where this film was made(Hough Ave) and it further marked a defining(Historical Dialectic) moment in the course where black art & politics aka agitprop intersect, via amiri baraka,ed bullins,sonia sanchez,jane cortez,toni cade bambara, melvin van peebles etc...
wow what a trip down memory lane;-)
Macedonia | July 20, 2012 10:45 AM
Saw Up Tight! last year via Netflix streaming and immediately fell in love with the film. Real cool to see actors like Max Julien and Dick Anthony Williams in roles completely different from The Mack's Goldie and Pretty Tony...
No | July 19, 2012 9:11 PM
Looking forward to the DVD release Uptight. I came of age that era but never saw the film. I do recall Booker T & the MG's "Time is Tight." I would argue that it was the first blaxploitation film, as the note on the footage claims. I read that this production was interfered with by the FBI-- and I can see why.
Thames | July 19, 2012 8:45 PM
I love the convenience of streaming video. But there is no way DVDs are going away. How are we supposed to share our favorite films if we can't pass our DVDs around between friends? I'm really looking forward to seeing 'Up Tight' on DVD.