The “evil, dishonest, and ugly” movie Roger Ebert refused to review: “Insulting garbage”
Not that it needs to be pointed out, but the job of a movie critic is to present an impartial and unbiased critique of a film, or at least as best as they can. However, some flicks are so offensive that it’s not even worth trying to offer a subjective review, and there were a few times Roger Ebert didn’t bother.
He gave dozens of pictures a zero-star rating, and in most cases, he tried to say something about them. The things he said weren’t very nice, but it was something. However, there were also the rare occasions when one of Ebert’s reviews wasn’t really a review at all, but more of a blatant admission that no redeemable qualities could be found, so he didn’t really need to bother with a deep-dive analysis.
One such title was writer and director Charles Martin’s 1968 adaptation of Chester Himes’ novel, If He Hollers Let Him Go. Written by an African-American author, the big-screen take on the book was helmed by a white filmmaker, and you get an inkling that Ebert believes that was the first of many wrong steps that were taken.
“If He Hollers, Let Him Go is trash,” he wrote in a flat-out thumbs down. “That it should be playing in a reputable first-run theatre is astonishing; apparently, it opened downtown because it has two cheaply exploited angles: nudity and racism. The ads make a lot of both.”
In the film, which makes some deviations from the source material, the protagonist, Raymond St. Jacques’ James Lake, escapes from prison after being imprisoned for a murder he didn’t commit. When he’s brought to the home of Leslie and Ellen Whitlock, the former offers him $10,000 to kill his wife. The opportunity was there to explore real social tensions and important themes, but from what Ebert saw, the film fell drastically short.
“Although this film features Black actors in starring roles, it does not in any sense treat those actors with dignity, or even decency,” he elaborated, pointing to St Jacques in particular, who he thought was “forced to act in situations and mouth lines which must have caused him untold mental suffering.”
Whereas the novel was praised for its relevance, explorations of racial tensions in the United States, class divides, discrimination in the workplace, and the looming threat of Communism, the adaptation favoured a more exploitative route, with the poster’s tagline even proudly proclaiming that it was “Made with Muscle, Nerve… Shock!,” whatever that’s supposed to mean.
“The plot is insulting garbage,” Ebert neatly put it. “The story panders in prejudice, deliberately exploiting Black/white tensions with a series of scenes in which characters pound, gouge, and kick each other bloody. This is an evil film, a dishonest film, an ugly film.”
No exploration or insight into the direction, the production design, the screenplay, the performances, the narrative, or any of the other bells and whistles you’d expect to see in a standard review. Instead, Ebert dedicated his time exclusively to dragging If He Hollers Let Him Go over broken glass, which was the least he thought it deserved.
