Black Snake (1973)

Black Snake (1973) is something of an oddity in the canon of Russ Meyer, lacking the out size breast fixation of the sex films that made his name and the budgets of his two films for Twentieth Century Fox, it boasts an historical setting and has pretensions of being 'issue based'.  In part an attempt to cash in on the early seventies Blaxploitation boom, Black Snake takes as its scenario a nineteenth century Caribbean slave revolt.  Unfortunately, Meyer seems to have no real feel for the subject, with both the historical details and context of the story shaky, (to say the least) and the injection of some clumsy humour, in a misguided attempt at satire, jars with the brutal violence on display.  The plot - young Englishman masquerades as new accountant to a plantation situated on a private island presided over by cruel aristocratic lady in order to discover the fate of her last husband, his brother - comes straight out of a nineteenth century melodrama, but proves inadequate as a vehicle to explore the issues surrounding slavery that the film clearly wants to make.  Indeed, it feels like a collision between two different films - one a mildly farcical Gothic mystery about the brother's disappearance, the other a violent drama about slavery, with neither storyline doing much to advance the other.  Disappointingly for Meyer fans, neither of the plot lines offers much in the way of sex.  Not that sex isn't ever present: the lady of the manor is the subject of multiple attempted sexual assaults, the hero gets to bed both her and a black slave girl, the overseer, when he isn't whipping slaves, seems sex obsessed, while the leader of the plantation's private army of black French colonial mercenaries is rampantly gay.  But despite all of this, there really isn't anything explicit or outrageous on offer.

The film's biggest problem with the film is its shaky grasp of history - it is set in 1835, yet pretty much ignores the fact that slavery had been abolished in most of the British Empire (the exceptions being those territories controlled by the British East India Company), despite referencing abolition in some early dialogue.  While it was true that former slaves weren't set free immediately, but rather had their slavery converted into 'apprenticeships eventually resulting in full emancipation', it marked a fundamental change in their situation,  They were now employees of a sort rather than property and had some legal protections.  So the whippings and brutality shown in the film would have been highly unlikely at the time the film is set, (not that conditions for workers of any kind at the time were brilliant).  The fact is that the movie simply doesn't reflect the actuality of the situation in British colonies at the time.  OK, I know that ultimately it is only an exploitation film, but by ignoring basic historical facts, Black Snake fumdamentally undermines the issues it claims to be exploring.  The British Carribean was, in reality, one of the last places you were likely to find a violent slave rebellion taking place in the 1830s.  It also doesn't help that none of the protagonists, on either side, are particularly sympathetic.  While the slaves' violent uprising is justified in light of the brutality meted out to them, their violent revenge is possibly even more brutal and guided by a demented religious fervour.  After all the more farcical shenanigans up at the 'big house' that preceded it, the sudden turn into murderous violence at the climax just feels jarring rather than shocking.

Despite all of this, Black Snake still has plenty of positives.  For one thing, it looks great - the Barbados locations are shot by cinematographer Arthur Ornitz to great effect, giving the film a far more expensive look than you'd expect for a low budget exploitation piece.  For another, the cast are actually pretty effective, despite the inadequacies of the script.  David Warbeck approaches the lead, for the most part, as if he were in a British sex comedy, while Anoushka Hempel, as the villainess plays her role to the hilt, spitting out racial epithets, ordering violent punishments and generally contemptuous of the whole male sex.  Veteran character actor Percy Herbert seems to be having the time of his life as her overseer, leering dementedly at women, attempting to force himself on Hempel and whipping every slave in sight, in an enjoyably over the top performance.  By contrast, Thomas Baptiste as the leader of the rebellion and Bernard Boston as the leader of the French mercenaries contribute somewhat more restrained performances, (it is to the latter's credit that his characterisation of the captain in no way plays to the gay stereotypes usually seen in seventies exploitation films).  While hugely entertaining, the performances of the main players nonetheless serve to emphasise the gulf between the ambitions of the two main storylines of the film.  Most of them perform as if they are in a sex comedy, or one of those bawdy British historical comedies of the sixties, like Tom Jones, which fits in with the mystery plot, but feel badly out of place in the slave rebellion plot.  

Not surprisingly, Black Snake wasn't a box office hit on its release.  Some of Meyer's excuses for its failure are more than mildly amusing.  In particular, he blamed the 'British' actors who, apparently, expected better on set facilities: 'tea and umbrellas and folding chairs'.  Leaving aside the fact that the two leads were actually from New Zealand, I wonder if Meyer had seen any of the films they had previously appeared in?  I don't think that either Warbeck or Hempel had ever appeared in a film with the budget for tea between takes, let alone umbrellas and folding chairs.  Likewise, Percy Herbert had spent his career toiling away in character roles in all manner of low budget movies and TV episodes.  In truth, as Meyer himself conceded, his approach to the material was simply wrong - he felt that he should have gone all out for the Gothic melodrama angle and produced something like Mandingo.  Indeed, the over heated Southern US setting of that film would have made far more sense in terms of the plot and brutality on show.  Even with such a setting, though, the central part of the plot, the slave uprising, would still be historically problematic.  While, understandably in view of a desire to appeal to the Blaxploitation audience, Meyer wanted to show black people empowering themselves and taking control of their own destinies, historically the abolition of slavery in both the UK and US was driven by wealthy whites and eventually achieved as the result of economic and political considerations.  Personally, I can't help but feel that Meyer would have been better off taking a full on bawdy British sex comedy approach to Black Snake, the setting and cast being more suited to such a take.  A sort of plantation 'Carry On'. But the question is, is Black Snake as made worth watching?  Well, yes - it is after all a Russ Meyer film starring David Warbeck, which is a combination nobody expected to see, plus, despite its problems, there's still a lot that's enjoyable about the film. Sections of it are amusing and the performances enjoyably over the top.  It is, however, far more like one of his studio pictures than his earlier work, so if you are expecting lots of anarchic big breasted fun, you might be disappointed.

As a coda, Anoushka Hempel, after marrying into a title, supposedly purchased the UK rights to both Black Snake and the Pete Walker film Tiffany Jones (1973) in order that her nude scenes in both couldn't be seem domestically.  Despite this, both films seem to have remained in circulation.  Moreover, I'm not sure why she would have been worried about Black Snake as Russ Meyer was so disappointed by the size of her breasts, he employed a bigger breasted body double for some of her nude scenes, so it i these 'stunt boobs' on view rather than hers.