NOT Available on DVD: DRUM

MANDINGO, a 1975 movie based on the best-selling period potboiler by Kyle Onstott about sexual shenanigans between masters and slaves on the Falconhurst slave-breeding plantation, was savaged by critics who saw it as nothing but degrading, big-budget exploitation. Roger Ebert called it “racist trashâ€�, a “piece of manureâ€�, and “excruciating to sit throughâ€� and MANDINGO certainly had it all; brutal violence, interracial sex, rape, infanticide, lynchings, and abundant nudity including full-frontal shots of it’s male star, boxer Ken Norton. But of course it was a huge hit and inspired a brief run of “slaverysploitationâ€� films such as PASSION PLANTATION (1975 aka BLACK EMMANUELLE, WHITE EMMANUELLE ) and the cleverly titled MANDIGA (1976). MANDINGO was overwrought melodrama to be sure, but it’s a model of subtlety compared to its official sequel, the more lascivious DRUM, a mean-spirited trash epic from 1976 that would never fly in today’s politically correct climate. Despite it’s large budget and cool cast of 70’s cult icons, DRUM remains unavailable on DVD.

DRUM’s tawdry story picks up about 20 years after MANDINGO. Hammond Maxwell (Warren Oates), the son of the late Falconhurst patriarch Warren Maxwell purchases a slave named Drum from bordello hostess Marianna (Isela Vega). Drum turns out to be the son of Mede (killed at the end of MANDIGO), the slave who had murdered Hammond’s father. Hammond uses Mede and his friend Blaise (Yaphet Kotto) to fight in ridiculous gladiator battles as entertainment for the ‘white folk’. Slave Regine (Pam Grier) is Hammond’s favorite ‘bed wench’ but develops a romance with Drum. Hammond’s bratty slut daughter Sophie (Rainbeaux Smith) stirs up trouble between Drum and Blaise by trying to have sex with both of them and then lying to her father that Blaise tried to rape her and a campy gay French slave trader (John Colicos) wants to bed black stud Drum as well. Tensions build, emotions erupt and by the end of the movie, a mansion is on fire, the black slaves have revolted against the ‘mastas’ wielding scythes and knives, while the white men battle it out with their muskets and rifles.

I can only imagine the howling responses to DRUM by those same critics who thought MANDINGO was in poor taste. Where MANDINGO was at least pretentious and literary (and had a dignified performance by James Mason as Warren Maxwell), DRUM makes no pretense at being anything except cheap thrills exploitation and ups the sleaze quotient by adding lesbianism, incest, castration, and a swishy gay villain to the mix. DRUM is more fast-paced and entertaining than its predecessor and any movie that includes Warren Oates and Pam Grier in its cast has to be considered a must-see 70’s classic.

Square-jawed actor Perry King played Hammond in the first film so the thought of him aging into the grizzled Warren Oates is rich and the always-grinning Oates has a great time in DRUM. Oates brings real demented joy to the part and is fantastic reciting such ripe, un-PC dialog as “Falconhurst is all about niggas fornicatin’. If’n my niggas stop fornicatin’, we stops eatin’â€� (DRUM drops the N-word more than all of Tarantino’s movies combined!). Drum, that perfect specimen of slave that neither man nor women can keep their hands off, was played by Ken Norton, a former world champion heavyweight boxer who had also played Mede in MANDINGO. Norton had a brooding, massive presence and no doubt high hopes for a film career, but he was no actor and his awkward readings and blank stare stand in stark contrast to the scenery-chewing of his DRUM co-stars. Norton (who once broke Muhammad Ali’s jaw) was reportedly a contender for the role of Apollo Creed in ROCKY but MANDINGO and DRUM were his first and last shots at big-screen stardom. Norton’s John Collicos delivers an eye-rolling, over-the-top performance as the devious gay slave trader Bernard DeMarigny. His evil character is so mincing and disgusting that I’m sure 1976 audiences cheered near the end when Drum reaches down DeMarigny’s pants and rips off his testicles! Yaphet Kotto as Drum’s best friend Blaise provides the film’s best acting but Kotto is so good and so serious that it often seems like he’s not in on the joke. Pam Grier (billed, for the only time in her career as ‘Pamela’) was the reigning queen of black cinema, but her role as Regine is surprisingly underwritten and she does none of her trademark ass-kicking. Isela Vega was a sexy Mexican who’d been Warren Oates leading lady in Sam Peckinpah’s BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA (and posed in ‘Playboy’) in 1974 and Cheryl “Rainbeaux” Smith, who plays Oates daughter, is an actress very familiar to fans of 70’exploitation and has a considerable cult following. Smith had starred in LEMORA LADY DRACULA in 1972 at age 17 and adorned drive-in screens throughout the decade in films like CAGED HEAT (1974), SWINGING CHEERLEADERS (1974), and MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH (1976) and essayed the title role in the adult version of CINDERELLA in 1977. Smith was a sexy and charismatic presence but had a weakness for heroin and died destitute at age 45. All four of the aforementioned actresses appeared topless in DRUM.

DRUM is historically inaccurate and politically incorrect in a way found only in the mid-70’s. It’s not racist in its attitude toward its characters and it, as well as MANDIGO, found their biggest audiences at urban theatres specializing in ‘Blaxploitation’. DRUM was released on the MGM video label in the mid-80’s but has long been out-of-print. A DVD label called ‘Blax Film’ sells DRUM but it appears to be ripped from that VHS. MANDIGO was released on the Legend Films DVD label just last year, so perhaps DRUM isn’t far behind.