Review: Kat Cole

Boss Nigger (1975)

Director: Jack Arnold.

There is desert. There is conflict. There are horses! There are guns! There are ladies. There are sluts!  There is the defending of honour. There is a lot of sand. This is a Western film. But with one difference that is nicely summed up by the films tagline:

White Man’s Town… Black Man’s Law!

Boss (Fred Williamson) and his sidekick Amos (D’Urville Martin) are two Black bounty hunters who stumble upon a town in the west whilst hunting down Jed Clayton (William Smith), a notorious, Caucasian outlaw. Jed has been terrorising the town, pillaging everything he wants using the threat of violence regularly and for a long while. Boss discovers that the town has no sheriff and after overthrowing the little authority left and found in Mayor Griffin (R. G. Armstrong), he appoints himself the new Sherriff and Amos his deputy.

Only problem is, this town is inhibited with rude, racist folks, many of which have never even seen a black person, let alone taken an order from one.  The bounty hunters begin to win a number of townsfolk over however, by punishing those who are rude or disrespectful to others, by providing free food and clothing to the poorer residents who live on the outskirts of town and Boss manages to get a couple of the ladies to fall for him too. It is now the duty of Boss and Amos to protect the town from Jed and his pack of minion cowboys.

The action escalates into a one-on-one shoot off at the end of the film between Boss and Jed (as is expected of the genre) but this one is splendidly hilarious, thanks to the words exchanged between the two characters and some very strange, unauthentic, body writhing from Jed, when Boss eventually shoots the crap out of him.

I had never watched a blaxploitation film before and was unsure how comfortable I would be when doing so because I knew very little about what the genre involves. Before watching the film, I looked for information about it on the internet and found this quote:

“[Boss and Amos] raise hell, chase women, and milk the locals for cash, while waiting for the opportunity to get their man.”

IMBD.com, (2008)

This made me think that this film would present the bounty hunters/black individuals in a negative way and that this would be the central point that the film would be built around. I defiantly feel that any of the negative acts performed by Boss and Amos were outweighed by the acts of kindness they also did and thankfully, it is the racists who end up suffering in by the end.

Black people were presented as highly stereotypical in this film and funk music is weaved throughout its duration - most notably the reoccurring use of Boss’ theme song, with lyrics that go along the lines of:

 “BOSS NIGGURRRRRRRR! THEY CALL HIM BOSS COZ HES BAAAAAAAD!!”

making this film “extra mature cheddar” on the cheesy scale of cheese. But this film is very funny in places and I would recommend others to rent a copy if they ever get the chance (apparently, it is quite a hard film to find).

I leave you with one of my favourite moments from Boss Nigger:

Waiter comes outside and notices the 2 black men that have just sat down in his restaurant. He stares. And stares.

BOSS: …look…he knows he’s a nigger. I knows I’s a nigger, so you don’t have to tell us we is. But even niggers has got to eat so go get me some food before I BLOW YOUR DAMN HEAD OFF!

WAITER: Yes sir, Mr Nigger! Oh dear –I mean, Yes sir!

[Waiter runs off]