Film version of Melvin Van Peebles’ Broadway musical. A pair of devil-bats take human form and crash a Harlem house party in an attempt to break it up. But somehow, their attempts to ruin the party fail.

2.68GB | 1h 42m | 960×576 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/99E1305C972A27F/Dont.Play.Us.Cheap.1973.576p.BluRay.x264-HANDJOB.mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:English

The post Melvin Van Peebles – Don’t Play Us Cheap (1972) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

A black American soldier is demoted for fraternizing with a white girl in France.

Letterboxd review
Added by Criterion 16 Jun 2021

Melvin Van Peebles’s edgy, angsty, romantic first feature could never have been made in America. Unable to break into segregated Hollywood, Van Peebles decamped to France, taught himself the language, and wrote a number of books in French, one of which, La permission, would become the stylistically innovative The Story of a Three Day Pass. Turner (Harry Baird), an African American soldier stationed in France, is granted a promotion and a three-day leave from base by his casually racist commanding officer and heads to Paris, where he finds whirlwind romance with a white woman (Nicole Berger)—but what happens to their love when his furlough is over? Channeling the brash exuberance of the French New Wave, Van Peebles creates an exploration of the psychology of an interracial relationship as well as a commentary on France’s contradictory attitudes about race that is playful, sarcastic, and stingingly subversive by turns, and that laid the foundation for the scorched-earth cinematic revolution he would let loose just a few years later.

2.25GB | 1h 28m | 960×576 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/80B1698086553C9/La.permission.AKA.The.Story.of.a.Three.Day.Pass.1967.576p.BluRay.AC3.x264.mkv

Language:English,French
Subtitles:English

The post Melvin Van Peebles – La permission AKA The Story of a Three-Day Pass (1967) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

An extremely bigoted white man finds out the hard (and somewhat humorous) way what it’s like being a black man, firsthand!

+The Guardian Interview with director Melvin Van Peebles in conversation with broadcaster Darcus Howe at London’s NFT (1996)
+Introduction with director Melvin Van Peebles (first 4:47 only)

2.38GB | 1h 39m | 1024×552 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/FCCC70D1E721692/Watermelon.Man.1970.576p.BluRay.AAC.x264-HANDJOB.mkv

Language:English
Subtitles:English

The post Melvin Van Peebles – Watermelon Man (1970) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

After saving a Black Panther from some racist cops, a black prostitute goes on the run from “the man” with the help of the ghetto community and some disillusioned Hells Angels.

“Run, motherfucker.”

Quote:
“Sweetback was politically unacceptable on the one hand, but it made a lot of money on the other. And I thought it was a stroke of genius to suppress the political aspects and highlight the cartoonish aspects, and there you’ve got your blaxploitation. In essence, blaxploitation ushered in a bunch of counterrevolutionary films….The upside was that because the films were so markedly “urban”–and I’m using the code word–they had to use minorities in central roles. So a lot of people got to learn a craft that had always been denied them.”

+Commentary by Assistant Director of Penitentiary Sergio Mims

2.61GB | 1h 37m | 1024×552 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/16FD7D569C80CFA/Sweet.Sweetbacks.Baadasssss.Song.1971.576p.BluRay.AAC.x264-HANDJOB.mkv

Language:English
Subtitles:English

The post Melvin Van Peebles – Sweet Sweetback’s Baad Asssss Song (1971) first appeared on Cinema of the World.