The 1970s is a decade known for its legendary cinema. Films like The Godfather, Dog Day Afternoon, Alien, Apocalypse Now, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest cemented themselves in history during this time period, sparking the careers of directors like Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola and creating the “blockbuster” as we know it. But one revolutionary piece of cinema, just as compelling as any of those household names, is conspicuously missing from the usual lists of ’70s classics.
The Spook Who Sat by the Door, directed by Ivan Dixon in 1973, should be brought up every time someone speaks of the lasting impact of films from this era. Despite not being picked up by a major distributor, facing mountains of suppression from the FBI, and almost becoming completely lost before being converted to DVD, the film survived to become one of the most radical works in the history of Black cinema.
The Spook Who Sat by the Door is an adaptation of a 1969 novel by author Sam Greenlee. It follows the fictional story of the CIA’s first Black operative, Dan Freeman, who resigns from the agency and returns to his hometown of Chicago with a secret plan—to train members of his former gang in guerilla warfare in an attempt to start a revolution. The book was rejected 40 times by publishers between 1966 and 1969.
2 Comments
tmyakal@infosec.pub · 5 pts · 2d
I've had this in my queue for a while now; it's just hard to find time to watch movies.
Atlanta paid homage to the movie/book by making an episode entitled "The Goof Who Sat by the Door" in their fourth season. It was a fantastic mockumentary telling a fictional account of how Disney made A Goofy Movie specifically to be the blackest movie of all time. It stands on its own, outside the continuity of the rest of the show, so even without seeing the rest of it, I highly recommend people check out that one episode.
themoken@startrek.website · 2 pts · 2d
TIL Ivan Dixon, who I know mostly as Sgt. Kinchloe on Hogan's Heroes, was radical as fuck. I have to check this movie out.