The folly of censorship

This movie was based on a short story by Romain Gary who was married to actress Jean Seaberg (who he reputedly based Kiristy McNichol's character on). Seaberg was a leftist actress of the Jane Fonda mold who was driven to suicide largely by FBI harassment and a "dirty tricks" campaign. For instance, they used her support for the Black Panthers to ruin her acting career with a racist rumor that her unborn child was actually black (a rumor that wasn't even true according to her husband Gary, and so what if it was?). Gary, who I think also comitted suicide later, knew a few things therefore about racism in a firsthand way that few white people do, and he wrote this story in response.

How ironic then that this movie by the late, great Sam Fuller has basically been censored for being racist? This kind of attitude which is largely but not exclusively prevalent among white people is that racism will just magically go away if we only pretend it doesn't exist. It's like putting a dirty bandaid on an infected wound and assume it's going to heal as long as don't actually ever look at it.

I recorded this movie off Showtime years ago and I also have a crappy videotape I bought in Argentina. I'm glad it may finally get a decent DVD release. It's not a racist movie. In fact, it's an anti-racist movie that's been very unfairly condemned by a lot of knee-jerk, chickensh*t political correctness.