Another pair of Al Adamson patchwork jobs with vastly different results, the double bill of Mean Mother and Uncle Tom's Cabin showcase the admirable resourcefulness of Adamson and Sam Sherman at Independent International Pictures while also primarily being duds, especially with the highly questionable latter film.
Production stories remain relatively interesting, though the cobbled-together nature of these two features are basically old hat for the company by this point. Sherman acquired a Spanish language film called Run for Your Life, but found the material too dry and dull for pretty much any set of audiences. Seeing a growing popularity with the blaxploitation genre (and Sherman stating that he wanted to expand the black actors in his cast to offer a proper representation of the world (or that he saw potential revenue)), Sherman hired Adamson to shoot some new material. While the original film involves a Vietnam deserter who travels to Rome, Adamson gives him a friend in Beauregard Jones (Dobie Gray), who also leaves the war and travels to Spain. Adamson cuts between these two stories: the already filmed (and overdubbed) Run for Your Life narrative (albeit edited), and this new (primarily marketed) story about Jones entering into a life of crime, before eventually merging the two plot lines in their jointed efforts to escape into Canada.
Sherman is certainly right in the general disinterest with the initial film, though Adamson's new material, while not entirely without some brief glimmers of merit, is hardly a picnic. Once again, as works built primarily on intriguing editing techniques and finding ways to use the old material for new narrative purposes, the film has appeal in the liberties taken, even as it slogs its way to the finish line. Perhaps the most engaging bits of business in this new material is a lengthy card game scene, where the stakes involve a woman's body: the final shot of the sequence, an assaulted woman looking at herself in the cracked glass of a mirror, has Adamson getting a bit arty, and one cannot help but agree with Sherman (on his informative commentary track) as he somewhat bitterly states that a shot like that would probably have been celebrated had it come out of some kind of European New Wave Film: though Sherman fails to consider that context, intent, and tone need to be at play too. An shot of isolated interest can only go so far.
Still, Mean Mother remains mostly harmless, successful in its attempts to at least do something with some acquired material though certainly another example of how Adamson works better when a film represents his own "vision" in its totality.
Uncle Tom's Cabin is a far trickier piece of business, an odd attempt at making some kind of "social statement" while also borderline becoming offensive in the attempt. Once again, Independent International acquired a older, foreign film: a 1965 German production of Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel (which places, perhaps unknown to him, Herbert Lom into the Adamson stock company) that, at its 170 minute running time, was having difficultly selling to an American distributor, and, in an effort to cash-in on the highly successful Mandingo and Drum (both splashed on the advertisements to lure those audiences), hired Adamson to shoot about forty minutes of new material and an English language dubbing of the previous footage to give it more of an exploitative edge. Based on the forty-five minutes or so of its original material used here, the film appears to be a straightforward and serious adaptation of the sadistic plantation owner Simon Legree (Lom) and the role of the obedient and peaceful slave Tom (Johnny Kitzmiller) in the rebellion efforts of the others. Adamson's additions are troubling, with plenty of sex, nudity, violence, and an attempted gang rape used entirely to appeal to more savage, drive-in eyes. But while some of Adamson's patchwork efforts, like Mean Mother or the science-fiction hack-work of Blood of Ghastly Horror, have a charm to their cash-grab existence, there is something oddly mean-spirited about the material shot to make Uncle Tom's Cabin, perhaps as a result of the original film appearing to be a genuinely thoughtful attempt at adaptation. Not doing Adamson any favors are the rapidly contrasting qualities of the "two" films, with the German work appearing to actually consider mood and atmosphere with the performances appearing generally good (though difficult to fully tell with the dub job), though, unlike several of his other "edited efforts", the new narrative actually works quite seamlessly in the confines of the adaptation. One wonders if the film would have worked a bit better without the attachment of Stowe's name and the use of her narrative, but the finished result here is a bit uncomfortable in the incorporation of the new material (and the decisions of what that new stuff should be). But unlike Adamson's other merge-jobs, Uncle Tom's Cabin has difficulties riding on the coattails of the charm of its creation, instead leaving a bit of a sour taste far before its conclusion.
Mean Mother
Dir. Al Adamson
88 Minutes
USA
1973
Starring: Dobie Gray, Donne Safren, Marilyn Joi, Albert Cole, Al Richardson
*1/2/*****
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Dir. Al Adamson
90 Minutes
USA
1977
Starring: John Kitzmiller, Herbert Lom, Olive Moorefield, Mary Ann Jenson, Prentiss Mouldon
**/*****
September 18th, 2020