THE KLANSMAN is a thoroughly rotten movie. With its subject matter—racism, rapes and revenge—it was never going to pass as a swell time (unless you’re seriously f-d up) but it didn’t have to be so rancid. Notable reporter/novelist William Bradford Huie’s 1967 novel may have value in its 303 pages, but as written, directed, cast, performed, shot, edited and scored, the 1974 film adaptation is about as uplifting and entertaining as losing a pet. *

Lee Marvin on the left. Richard Burton on the right. What is that in the middle?

A small town in Alabama has to deal with a rape. A white woman has been violently assaulted and apparently the perpetrator is black. There’s no good place for something like this to happen, but the rednecked burg conjured here bottoms the list. The sheriff, ‘Track Bascomb’ (Lee Marvin), hopes to keep a lid on things while finding the offender, but the town is riddled with ignorant, vengeance-riled Ku Klux Klan foot soldiers, including the sheriff’s moron deputy (Cameron Mitchell). Track’s liberal friend ‘Breck Stencill’ (Richard Burton) weighs in, along with black activist ‘Loretta Sykes’ (Lola Falana) and ‘Garth’ (O.J. Simpson), angrier than the average bro. Evah’body goan be hurt.

Lee showing ‘Dirty Dozen’ skill at mowing down Nazis who don’t have the nards to wear uniforms

Samuel Fuller wrote a script that was reworked by Millard Kaufman. Both get screen credit: the results honor neither. Brit action vet Terence Young directed, but the sophisticated flair he brought to Bond flings Dr. No, From Russia With Love and Thunderball and the New York apartment thriller Wait Until Dark were nowhere in evidence. Instead the heavy hand he plonked on Bloodline and Inchon prevailed. At least you could laugh at those turkeys. There’s no glee here, stem to stern, with woeful miscasting (dissipated Burton, blank Simpson, Italian beauty and ex-007 babe Luciana Paluzzi, dubbed by Joanna Moore), sickening rape scenes (Falana’s debasement is as crass as the treatment Michael Winner subjected his female cast members to in the Death Wish sequels), the stupid character names (Paluzzi is ‘Trixie’, Mitchell’s brutish ape is ‘Butt Cutt Cates’, also raped Linda Evans is ‘Nancy Poteet’), sloppy camera work, clunky editing, foolish fight scenes, risible dialogue. Filmed in Oroville, California: the initially pleased citizens changed their tune when they saw what was wrought.

Linda, the same year she ditched John Derek and six before she landed ‘Dynasty’

Many reviewers make harpy hay with Burton’s condition and appearance, which—even though his ‘performance’ is the worst of his career, Alabama by way of Cardiff—smacks of casual cruelty in that he was utterly debilitated by alcoholism, barely able to function in the death grip of three quarts of vodka a day (and sixty cigarettes): he deserved pity, not scorn. Marvin (no slouch at gulping enough hooch for the Marine Corps) puts as little effort as required into something he clearly saw (thru red eyes) as a stink bomb. Defendant Simpson, “introduced”, is as animated as a glove; in his debut he’s ironically running away from a crime scene.

Lee, you could have done everyone a favor

Reviews were in the urinal and the $5,000,000 whizzed away only flushed up $2,400,000, 101st place in 1974.

With David Huddleston (busy that year with five features, two TV movies and parts in eight series: contrast his Mayor here with his ‘Olson Johnson’ in Blazing Saddles, which also tackled race and did so a lot more effectively), John Pearce, Hoke Howell, David Ladd (Alan’s son), Lee de Broux, The Staple Singers. 112 minutes that didn’t help anyone or anything.

‘Thunderball’ vixen wondering where the hell Sean is when I need him? Q: does she look like a ‘Trixie’?

* This site is, better or worse, a limited compendium, with inclusion/exclusion choices I (call me Mark) make, toiling solo (the great Leonard Maltin, for example, had a slew of contributors to help wade thru those 20,000+ entries) in between life’s other demands, like mixing root beer floats and cussing my phone. I’ve seen around 6,500 movies: and as of 3/8/24 my infopinions on 3,080 of them have been blogged upon the willing—or just unwary. Of the 3,420 remaining from that 6,500 many will never be added, due to time (what I may have left), availability (not always at fingertips) and because a load of ’em just aren’t worth revisiting or saying anything about beyond ‘yep’ or ‘nope’.  And by the time your scribe hopefully rates a cheap seat in the great Cinerama Dome in the Sky x-many more will have been added to the total. A tsunami of them, and one of me. For sure ‘bad’ movies like The Conqueror, Valley Of The Dolls or The Room are kicks to watch and comment on because the haplessness is harmless, a flailing with its own goofy charm. But that which truly reeks? Myriad sites on the Webisphere cater to slasher garbage and other grade D-Z junk: surf and you’ll find what fix you may require in dross and dreck. The crap sandwich that is The Klansman gets mentioned (and twisted my mouse arm to indulge in this blowhardish asterisking) only because of the array of well-known talents and colorful personalities involved. It’s a head shaker, all right, but one that wrings winces rather than whimsy.