Sports fans will remember Norton as the man who broke Muhammad Ali's jaw in the first of three split-decision fights, but readers of this blog know him as an icon of the 1970s: the star (in two separate roles) of Richard Fleischer's slavesploitation epic
Mandingo and its sequel, Steve Carver's
Drum. According to my stats, my review of
Mandingo is by far the most popular thing I've written here, though most people probably look it up for the screencaps. For similar reasons, my review of
Drum is also a top-ten item.
Norton's death at age 70 from complications following a stroke is, however sad, as good an occasion as any to refer people to two films that strongly influenced Quentin Tarantino's
Django Unchained -- most obviously in the form of "mandingo fighting" -- and are arguably superior in their unselfconscious exploitation of the mood of their time. Look up
Mandingo here, and
Drum here -- and give Ken Norton some props along the way. As actor and fighter, he literally talked the talk and walked the walk.
Ave atque vale.
1 comment:
I'm hoping DRUM will get a legit DVD release at some point -- and hopefully with the cut 40 some odd minutes reinstated, or at least as an extra. I got MGM HD in the hopes of making a DVD-R copy of it, but it never showed up again, unfortunately.
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