:
Beverly Gill,
Paula Kelly,
J.A. Preston,
more...
:
Ivan Dixon,
Ivan Dixon
see all cast/crew...
: 
: Obsidian Home Entertainment/Monarch Home Vide
: Action, Drama, Politics and Social Issues, Blaxploitation, Espionage
: 102 min.
: English
see additional details...
|
|
Sam Greenlee's cult favorite novel of political unrest was brought to the screen in this drama, which also earned a small but loyal following. A congressman hoping to attract African-American voters during an election year decides to make political hay by pointing out that the Central Intelligence Agency has no black agents. Bowing to subsequent public pressure, the CIA admits a number of black applicants to their training program, but they purposefully make the process difficult and unpleasant enough to winnow out nearly all the African-American students. Dan Freeman (Lawrence Cook), a strong, intelligent but soft-spoken man, somehow makes it through the gauntlet to become the black CIA agent; however, rather than being given important field assignments, Freeman is put in charge of the agency's copying machines and gives tours of their facilities to give the offices a progressive front for visitors. After a few years, Freeman leaves the agency to move back to his hometown of Chicago and do work with the community...at least that's what he tells his superiors. In fact, Freeman has used his time at the CIA collecting information on how to launch a political revolution, and not long after he arrives in the Windy City, he begins recruiting an army of leftist radicals and black nationalists fed up with the system. With their help, Freeman launches the first stage of an armed revolt with the stated goal of bringing the white-dominated power structure to its knees. The Spook Who Sat by the Door was a rare feature directorial assignment for Ivan Dixon, best known as an actor (he played Sgt. "Kinch" Kinchloe on Hogan's Heroes), Dixon has an extensive resume of directorial credits, but primarily in episodic television. Spook is his second theatrical release. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Special Features:
- Introduction by USA Today Columnist DeWayne Wickham
- "One on One" with Writer Sam Greenlee
- Robert Townsend Commentary
- Theatrical Trailer
- TV Spots
|
| In college? Need a term paper? Find "The Spook". Otherwise ...
by Lastcrackerjack
May 3, 2006 - 6:40 PM PDT
|
|
Based on the 1969 novel by Sam Greenlee, the film version was shot on an $850,000 budget with funds raised by Black investors. United Artists provided another $200,000 in completion bonds.
Directed by Ivan Dixon, the production was denied permission to shoot in Chicago by Mayor Daley Sr. and instead, filmed in Gary, Indiana and guerilla style in Chicago, in one instance, shooting on an L platform on 63rd Street. The crew got access to the track by paying and going through the turnstiles.
Prior to being available on DVD in 2004, "The Spook" was a hard movie to even locate. This film provides the closest thing to a blueprint for armed resistance than any movie of the period would dare. Following the assassinations of MLK, Malcolm X and Robert Kennedy, revolution was an option being seriously considered by those who were fed up seeing their leaders killed and tired of being held back. Once UA took a look at "The Spook", they got spooked and barely gave it a release.
Outside of an academic setting - the place to discuss the impact of the book and the film - there's not a lot to recommend here. Greenlee makes a fine point about self-reliance, but the film needed fewer "points" and a lot more drama. Next to "Dan Freeman", the other characters are sketches at best, stereotypes at worst. The film plays like a "What If?" conversation at a bar, with little narrative punch or believability. One minute, Freeman seems like a happy-go-lucky cog, merrily lighting Whitey's cigar, and the next, he's in Chicago leading a revolution, openly discussing tactics at a pool hall.
Lawrence Cook is terrific in the lead, giving one of the few convincing screen portrayals of the adage, "The most dangerous thing in America is a Black man with an education." Nebbish in his glasses, Freeman is soft spoken, but highly motivated, intelligent and lethal. Greenlee's militant dialogue does stand out. The overall film does not.
|
| Revolutionary Cinema that Packs a Wallop!
by AHurley
October 11, 2004 - 2:57 AM PDT
|
|
|
5 out of 7 members found this review helpful
|
The opening scene of The Spook who Sat by the Door signals that this film intends to raise some serious consciousness. A white senator and his two female advisers, one white and one black, are discussing the senator's drop in popularity. The black woman comments that were the election to be held today, the senator would surely lose. Why? Because "the Negroes are the trouble spot." They aren't buying his "law and order" platform. To deflect attention away from the senator's unpopular policies, the three devise a diversion scheme: accuse the CIA of racist hiring practices. This scene and others dramatize how getting a few people of color in high-profile (window dressing) positions in and of itself is not the solution, but it would be a mistake to describe the film as merely about what's wrong with America. The Spook is about how to achieve authentic freedom via The Way of the Underground Third World Revolutionary. The Spook is also, in the words of Robert Townsend, "guerrilla cinema at its best." (Shots of Chicago were made without permission, and the DVD special features provide other details as to how the making of the film involved some creative and anti-authoritarian production techniques.) If you haven't heard about the Spook before, you are definitely not alone. Townsend recalls that he saw the film at the Woods Theater in Chicago when it was first released in '73. Two days later, the film was gone, and it remained largely unknown (except for in some classrooms here and there) until the release of this DVD. (When you watch, it will be obvious who got scared of what might happen if large numbers of people saw this movie.) An explosive film that is every bit as revolutionary in content as it is exhilarating to watch, the Spook delivers! And then some! The plot alone is bold and unflinching: the first black hired by the CIA leaves the agency after five years and trains a small cadre of black men in Chicago in the martial arts, teaches them how to build explosives, and raises consciousness about black nationalist self-determination. For example, he argues that "there's no way the United States can police the world and keep us on our ass unless we cooperate." (And the non-cooperation he has in mind is total.) He also explains, "What we got now is a colony. What we wanna create is a new nation." Heavy stuff. Real stuff. Beautifully presented. Representatives from this first group he trains move on to other cities, and before long, their opportunity to launch a full-scale revolution comes when police murder a young man in Chicago. The ensuing riot transforms into an uprising and then a highly organized guerrilla war against the white supremacist police state writ large. The underground movement takes on the police and the military, and they hold their own (with bombs, semi-automatics, molotov cocktails, and all sorts of highly coordinated moves). And when the revolution comes, the vast majority of black folks who may not necessarily know any revolutionary theory nonetheless know to whom to give their allegiance. It's another story for the upwardly mobile and those who identify with the oppressor, and that's where the Spook gets even more instructive. You'll have to see it to learn more. The Spook is directed by Ivan Dixon (Nothing But a Man and Hogan's Heroes) and is the most important film I've ever seen. Please see it and see it often.
|
|
|
GreenCine Member Rating
(Average 6.74)
34 Votes
add to list 
|
|
|
Your cart
jaxon
brack28
© 2006 All Media Guide, LLC. Portions of content provided by All Movie Guide®,
a trademark of All Media Guide, LLC.