This story is a strong representation of a book that captured the imagination of many urban African Americans in the late 1960s. The U.S. and local governments were actively moving against Black Americans in the same spirit as U.S. governments now move to implement Homeland Security. The movie and the book that it is based on reflect the reality based paranoia that many educated African Americans experienced. The Spook who sat by the Door is not meant to be realistic about how successful Black revolution was. It portrayed the narrowed range of realistic alternatives that African Americans face when your govenment has declared war on its own minorities.
If you watch this movie, you will know why the government surpressed it.
I bought this movie after hearing about it for a decade. Those people who informed me of the movie, had watched bootleg copies of it because it was unavailable in your local Blockbusters. If one studied the Black Nationalist Groups of the 1960's and 1970's, and how the FBI conspired to prevent the rise of the Black Messiah who would lead a Mau Mau revolution in America, and those were the FBI's words from their COINTELPRO files, then you will know why this movie was surpressed. Quite simply, this movie is powerful. It is just as potent today as it was 30 years ago. If one studies the Black Panther Movement and the Black Nationalist Groups of that era, one can see the fear that the government would have if the thesis of this movie were to take hold. The interview with Sam Greenlee, the author, was excellent. He is just as militant today as he was yesterday.
Enjoy it with the love of all things good.
WITHIN OUR GATES..................
Some might say that this film is radical for it's time and that it was too violent for people to watch. There are even some who claim to be "critical" observers who were at the actual filming of this movie. The reality is that oscar micheaux's
Within our Gates was trully radical as was Richard Wright's book Native Son (and film). Ivan Dixon's adaption of Sam Greenlee's novel complements the latter and breaks ground in it's "non-Blaxploitation" approach.
As to the comments of violence...one need only see The Godfather parts 1 and 2 from the early 70's to realize that "The Spook who sat by the Door" was far more profound and relavent than any other Hollywood film of that period....and to this day remains as relavent as it did in 1973.
I don't know much about Huey P. Newton at all. Up to the point when i seen this movie, if you told me the mans name I would have had no idea who he was, but now I do. I saw this movie the first time on tv. I was channel surfing and I came across this movie. After watching it for a sec. I could not turn the channel. Roger Guenveur Smith is absolutly wonderful in this movie. I was blown away. Such passion in his acting. I still don't know much about Huey P. Newton, but watching this movie has changed my perspective on what the Black Panthers were all about. Check this movie out. Its amazing...... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Spike Lee DVD Release Date: Released the 13 January 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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This movie was probably the first of its type. Many "life as a gang member" films came to follow it (especially in the 1980s and 1990s), but none really did so like this one... Most the ones that followed had a tendency to be too "Hollywood Melodramatic"-ish (at times cartoonish, and at other times somewhat preachy.) Without spoiling the ending, though Sonny Carson makes an important decision at the end of the film, the ending is anything but happy... in fact it is often critisized for its apparent "inconclusion", but I disagree... It is what makes the film so great. Almost like a documentary ("120 Blocks from Tiffany's") the film simply tells the story and leaves the big question to be asked and answered by the viewer. Sonny has "graduated" from his training by society and the... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Michael Campus DVD Release Date: Released the 27 August 2002 Usually ships in 24 hours
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If you're looking for a movie that shocked the filmgoing public with its outspoken take on race relations in corporate America circa 1969, look no further than this Robert Downey debut effort. Made on a shoestring in black and white, this film begins with a wonderful moment of racial discomfort. The board of directors at a Madison Avenue ad agency must elect a new chairman, and, in the maneuvering to make sure that enemies don't get votes, all the board members accidentally cast their ballot for the board's token black man, Putney Swope (Arnold Johnson). Swope immediately cleans house and transforms the agency into New York's hippest shop with a Black Power mentality and a willingness to tell previously unspoken truths in advertising. Though it looks dated today, it is a fascinating time... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Arnold Johnson Director(s): Robert Downey Sr. DVD Release Date: Released the 22 May 2001 Usually ships within 24 hours
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Spoken like a (...). How can this airbrain claim that black ppl bo-janglin, sa- sucking and samboing was a good thing cos they could pay their bills and it was just comedy? Sure, comedy at the expense of ppl suffering from such demeaning antics. I guess this idiot feels that slavery and degradation of a culture was in good taste and approved as being universally ethical. Aussie dude get yur head from down under ground cos u actin like a ostrich and it is not FUNNY! More Info about this DVD Director(s): Mark Daniels (III) DVD Release Date: Released the 14 August 2001 Usually ships within 24 hours
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