The Klansman (1974)

Set in a rural Alabama town dominated by the Ku Klux Klan, tensions ride high after a white woman (Linda Evans) is raped by a black man and a group of outside protestors come to town to march for civil rights. Based on the novel by William Bradford Huie (REVOLT OF MAMIE STOVER) and directed by Terence Young (DR. NO). To call this movie awful is a major understatement. How did so many talented people get involved in this piece of salacious trash? I've not read the Huie novel but surely it couldn't have been as crude as its film adaptation. Nothing in the movie gets it right. The original screenplay was written by Samuel Fuller and he was set to direct it before leaving the project and the script was reworked by Millard Kaufman. The movie seems to be intended as an indictment of the KKK and racism but it uses the "N" word more times than a Tarantino movie and one has to wonder about its possibly racist exploitation of rape. When the white Evans is raped, it's shown in darkness and it's quickly over but when Lola Falana (who's black) gets raped, the camera lingers over the rape and exposing her body with what one could almost call glee! And who thought it was a good idea to cast the Italian beauty Luciana Paluzzi as a Southerner? Her voice is dubbed by Joanna Moore which begs the question, why didn't they just cast Joanna Moore? With Richard Burton (doing a dreadful Southern accent), Lee Marvin (who seems to be walking thru the movie), Cameron Mitchell and O.J. Simpson in his film debut.