Mandingo (film)
Plot
Warren Maxwell pressures him to marry, so Hammond chooses his cousin, Blanche, who is desperate to get out of her house to escape her brother Charles. It is implied that she had an incestuous relationship with Charles. After their wedding night, Hammond is sure that she is not a virgin—a claim Blanche denies. On their way back from their honeymoon, Hammond returns to the plantation where Ellen is kept and purchases her as his sex slave. Eventually, he comes to genuinely care for her.
Production
A human, sociological story that's going to bring about a better understanding between the races ... We're faithful to the story of the book but not the spirit. I mean, the book's hackwork, isn't it? It's almost repulsive. A lot of people have read it, but they read it for the wrong reasons. It's really a story of love. We had the script rewritten three times. ... I hated that ending in the book where the guy boils the slave down and pours the soup over his wife's grave. I mean, we have the slave boiled but we cut out the part where he pours the soup on his grave. He just ... pulls away. And we know that tomorrow there's going to be a lot of trouble. It's really a very beautiful ending.
Mandingo (film)
Mandingo is a 1975 American historical melodrama film focusing on the Atlantic slave trade in the Antebellum South. The film's title refers to the Mandinka people, who are referred to as "Mandingos", and described as being good slaves for fighting matches. The word is also used as a pejorative to describe a hypersexual Black man. Produced by Dino De Laurentiis for Paramount Pictures, the film was directed by Richard Fleischer. The screenplay, by Norman Wexler, was adapted from the 1957 novel Mandingo) by Kyle Onstott, and the 1961 play Mandingo) by Jack Kirkland (which is derived from the novel).
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