Watermelon man / Columbia Pictures presents ; a Bennett-Mirell-Van Peebles production ; produced by Johanna Productions ; written by Herman Raucher ; produced by John B. Bennett ; directed by Melvin Van Peebles.
Godfrey Cambridge, Estelle Parsons, Howard Caine, D'Urville Martin, Mantan Moreland, Kay Kimberly, Kay E. Kuter, Scott Garrett, Erin Moran. Title from title frames. Released as part of the five-disc Blu-ray boxed set Melvin Van Peebles Essential Films. Originally released as a motion picture in 1970. Wide screen (1.85:1). Special features: Introduction by Van Peebles from 2004; How to eat your watermelon in white company (And enjoy it), a feature-length 2005 documentary by Joe Angio on Van Peebles's life and career.
Summary:
"Melvin Van Peebles's only foray into Hollywood filmmaking, Watermelon Man is one of the most audacious, radically conceived works to be financed by a major American studio in the 1970s. Comedian Godfrey Cambridge delivers a virtuoso performance (initially in whiteface)as Jeff Gerber, a loudmouthed, bigoted white insurance salesman whose sitcom-like suburban existence is jarringly upended when he wakes up to discover, in a whild spin onf Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis, that he has become a Black man. What ensues is a ferocious satire of society's racist double standards that gradually transforms into an empowering poretrait of awakening Black consciousness, executed with a mix of acerbic irreverence and deadly serious political commentary by a relentlessly subversive Van Peebles"--Container.
Series:
Criterion collection ; 1094 Melvin Van Peebles, essential films
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