Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song was somewhere way back in my memory, resting quietly until the film resurfaced in the obituaries of Melvin Van Peebles who died at the age of 89 on September 21, 2021.
Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song was written, co-produced, scored, edited, directed by, and starred Melvin Van Peebles. It is a very raw, guerilla film made for only $150,000. Sweetback's revenge against the oppression of blacks by "the Man" along with his renowned sexual prowess was a big draw in 1971 with lines to see the film around the block. It grossed $70,000 in its first week in Detroit and total gross was over $15 million at the box office, about $101,321,111 today. The films success proved that films with black actors, breasts and violence could make some real money and the blaxploitation film industry took off.
SSBS was originally released with an X rating and could not be made today (for good reason). The film starts out with a 12 year old Sweetback having sex with a hooker in a brothel where they both worked. Melvin's 13 year old son Mario Van Peebles is the actor and everyone is naked, bumping and grinding. Melvin plays the adult Sweetback with a lot more gratuitous naked sex throughout the film. After Sweetback saves the life of a black man who was going to be killed by racist cops the rest of the film is him on the run.
Even though SSBS is only 1h 37m long I had to watch it over a couple of nights. The jerky handheld camera, out of focus scenes and bad psychedelic altered reality scenes hurt my brain. The soundtrack is by Earth Wind and Fire but it is not their best work and often jarring, the sound quality is extremely compressed and in your face, I had to keep turning the volume down.
Everyone is amazed that Melvin managed to make this film and originally it was screened in X-rated movie theaters. Melvin Van Peebles contracted gonorrhea from one of the actresses during filming of one of the sex scenes in the movie. He applied for compensation from the Directors Guild because he "got hurt on the job" and used the money to buy more film.
1.
The Region 2 DVD edits out the child porn.
Sometimes historic, groundbreaking films are not that good. SSBS is one of the worst films I have seen, on the plus side it certainly unforgettable. Probably Melvin's plan from the beginning.
SSBS was made by Blacks for Blacks and has the best end credit ever:
WATCH OUT
A BAAD ASSSSS N****R IS COMING BACK
TO COLLECT SOME DUES...
RIP Melvin Van Peebles
Watch the trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aen5aQ7w4PE72% on RT and that's extremely generous - Watch it if you dare
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/sweet_sweetbacks_baadasssss_song 
1 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067810/
