Welcome to the second, and final, installment in WORLDOFHURTONLINE.COM’s Countdown of the Top Ten Blaxploitation Villains.  I got really great feedback last week and I think the countdown was a big success, so I’ll be incorporating a few more into my roster of recurring features like The Unsung Badmother****** Awards and If You’re A Fan Of Blaxploitation, Then You Oughtta Know….  I think a few of the finalists in the Top Five might draw some debate, but I’d be glad to know who you guys would put on your lists.

Well enough jaw-jackin’.  Let’s get down with the countdown:

#5 – HEROIN

Drugs loomed large in Blaxploitation, because they dominated (and continue to dominate) the bleak social and economic landscape of America’s inner cities.  In the 1970s, the drug of choice among the poor and dispossessed was heroin.   At the time, cocaine still had cachet as an upscale recreational drug whose physically addictive qualities were still in doubt in some quarters.  For example, Blaxploitation hero, Youngblood Priest from Super Fly, dealt exclusively in cocaine.  However, heroin was rightfully recognized as a blight on the community. Heroin overdoses at the hands of ruthless dealers was the catalyst for action in films like Coffy (1973) and Gordon’s War (1973).

The new movie, Black Dynamite, a satirical homage to Black action movies of the 1970s which opens this October 16th, even references Blaxploitation’s focus on heroin with their online viral campaign to Fight Smack In The Orphanage (F.S.I.T.O.) At the above link you can find a  is a mock PSA created by the Black Dynamite team, featuring one of the film’s stars, Byron Minns as “Bullhorn” doing an uncanny, and hilarious, impression of Rudy Ray “Dolemite” Moore.  (WARNING:  This video may be NSFW.)

#4 – YAPHET KOTTO as “HARVARD BLUE” in Truck Turner (1974)

Ever read The Autobiography of Malcolm X?  In it, Malcolm X recounts his earlier life as a thief, a gambler, and a drug dealer plying his illicit trades in Harlem and Boston.  In the criminal underworld in which he operated, Malcolm X encountered an old school gangster named West Indian Archie, a numbers runner with a photographic memory.  Malcolm X lamented that, with his facility with numbers, in another time and another place, West Indian Archie could have been a doctor, a scientist, or an accountant.  Instead, with the limited opportunities at his disposal, West Indian Archie just became an exceptionally good criminal.  Yaphet Kotto’s Harvard Blue was West Indian Archie.  Yaphet Kotto played Harvard Blue, as his first name implies, as an smart man– a smart, ruthless businessman whose business happened to be pimpin’ hos.  There was something about Blue that suggested he was better than “The Life,” but if this was his destiny, then he was damn sure going to make the most of it.  Harvard Blue wasn’t aiming for legitimacy anymore, he was shooting for absolute domination of the game.

# 3 – NICHELLE NICHOLS as “DORINDA” in Truck Turner (1974)

Nichelle Nichols’ turn as Dorinda, a foul-mouthed, quick-tempered madame, is a revelation, because it explodes the viewer’s notions of Nichols as an actress.  For three seasons in the 1960s, Nichols portrayed Lt. Uhura, the steady, calm, regal communications officer of the USS Enterprise in the TV series, Star Trek.  (For more on this, see my earlier post “Trek Turner.”)  Dorinda was as far from Uhura as one could get.  After bounty hunter Truck Turner and his partner kill her boss, Gator, in an arrest gone wrong, Dorinda vows revenge, and offers her stable of call girls as the reward for the pimp with the balls to bring her Turner’s shiny, bald head on a platter.  Nichols struts, preens, purrs and hisses through her scenes with a wicked, profanity-laced abandon.  She’s like a Tourette’s-afflicted Eartha Kitt.  Dorinda is a force of nature who won’t be denied her vengeance, and Nichelle Nichols absolutely owns the screen anytime she’s on it.  Nichols’ larger-than-life Dorinda also plays well against the hulking, quiet intensity of Yaphet Kotto’s Harvard Blue.

# 2 – DON STROUD as ” KIRK” in Slaughter’s Big Rip-Off (1973)

In Slaughter, Jim Brown traveled to Mexico to bust up the mob ’s operations after they blew up his parents with a car bomb.  In Slaughter’s Big Rip-Off, the mob comes back for revenge.  They should have left well enough alone, because their botched assassination attempt on Slaughter, which involved a bi-plane outfitted with machine guns and the exploding head of Punky Brewster’s dad, only puts “The Baddest Dude That Ever Walked The Earth” back on their trail, and he’s not stopping ’til he delivers “The Big Payback”.*  Since his first attempt to kill Slaughter failed,  the Los Angeles crime boss, Duncan (played quite effectively by the late Tonight Show sidekick, Ed McMahon) calls in Kirk, a heavy-hitter from back East, to finish the job.  Duncan introduces Kirk to his hangers-on and minions at a pool party, and Kirk quickly proves his worth.  Kirk’s first order of business is to deliver the message that Duncan will not tolerate failure.  After clearing out the pool with just a hard stare to the assembled guests, Kirk slips into the water behind the failed assassin and strangles him with a deflated pool toy.  A POOL TOY!  Later in the film, Kirk recovers the film’s MacGuffin from Slaughter by threatening to kill Slaughter’s main squeeze, Marcia (Gloria Hendry), whom he was holding hostage.  Slaughter agrees to turn over the information if Kirk releases Marcia.  Kirk concedes to his demands and lets Marcia go.  However, Kirk’s men recapture Marcia, and Kirk sadistically turns Marcia into Slaughter’s executioner by forcing the poor woman to drive herself and Slaughter over a cliff into the Pacific Ocean.

What I loved about Don Stroud’s performance, is that he plays Kirk with such cunning cruelty.  Although he’s not above getting his hands dirty to get what he wants, he obviously enjoys getting inside the head of his opponents, too.  From the minute he is introduced, you know Kirk is a restless, backstabbing manipulator.  Although Kirk kills his predecessor at the pool party to secure his place in the organization and prove his loyalty to Duncan, Kirk is obviously not content with playing second fiddle for long.  Toward the end of the movie, there’s a scene where Kirk silently observes Duncan’s runners dropping off briefcases filled with cash into Duncan’s headquarters, before sidling into Duncan’s inner office.  He then makes an offhand comment about the obscene amount of cash moving through the operation.  The scene was obviously written as an expository scene so Ed McMahon could explain money laundering to the audience, but Don Stroud plays it with a disarming casualness that actually underscores that fact that Kirk is merely biding his time until he can safely bump off Duncan and claim his criminal empire for himself.

#1 – “THE MAN”

You know who “The Man” is.  If you don’t know, I’d like to remind you of the joke about the loudmouthed, annoying relative who’s at every family reunion.  If you don’t think your family has one, chances are that it’s you.  OK, it may seem like a cop-out, but as I stated at the beginning of the first part of this series, Blaxploitation, in part, was a cinematic response to very real issues that couldn’t be easily capsulized, or personified, in one person.  The intended audience knew there was something within the political, cultural, and economic power structure that was weighted against them.  It was something that could not be easily capsulized, or personified, in a single person.  The very fact that so many of the villains weren’t very memorable is less an indictment of the actors in those roles, or even the writing, and more an indication that it didn’t really matter to the movie-goers.  THEY knew who the enemy was.  Consider the fact that in Super Fly, the audience didn’t even see the real mastermind of Priest’s misery, the Deputy Commissioner Riordan, until the last five minutes of the film, but they still cheered like mad when Priest revealed his trump card. Like the faceless hordes of Nazis in World War II films who were mowed down under the guns of charismatic, square-jawed American heroes, Blaxploitation’s equally faceless legions of corrupt cops, unscrupulous sell-outs, crooked politicians, and racist mobsters represented ideas, attitudes, and institutions that needed to be taken down by some resolute, and righteous, brother or sister.

That’s it for today.  Again, thanks for making this such a big week at WORLD OF HURT.  I’d like to send a special thanks to the legendary Fred “The Hammer” Williamson who started my week on a major, major high note when I discovered that he had accepted my request to join the WORLD OF HURT Facebook fan page.  Mr. Williamson is a role model for how a man should conduct his business.  He always set his own terms and refused to back down from his core beliefs.  When the other party refused to budge, he raised the capital and the  resources to do it himself.   The man hit hard on the field, on the screen, and in the board room.  My hat’s off to you, Mr. Williamson.

See y’all soon.

- JEP

* James Brown wrote the motion picture soundtrack for Slaughter’s Big Rip-Off, for which he delivered the classic funk track “The Payback.”  Unfortunately, you wouldn’t know this if you saw DVD version released through MGM’s Soul Cinema line.  Apparently, they did not, or were unable to, secure the rights to James Brown’s music, therefore it has all been replaced with generic funk music that is the musical equivalent of clip art.