Jim Brown

Jim Brown died a few days ago. Having recently read Quentin Tarantino's Cinema Speculation, in which he expresses admiration for the actor he watched onscreen as a child, it's hard not to feel like this is the passing of a giant. Even though I hadn't seen most of the movies Tarantino talked about in the book. I have a great fondness for 1968's Dark of the Sun, which I downloaded a copy of seven or eight years ago and has had a permanent place on my hard drives ever since.

Brown is one of the leads along with Rod Taylor. It's really Taylor's film but Brown is good as the more level headed counterpart to Taylor's mercenary. Each man is unscrupulous in his own way but with Brown's character it's because he has a bigger picture in mind. He's fine in the role, not the least because of his physical presence, the former Cleveland Browns player being a legendary athlete.

Last night I watched one of Tarantino's favourite Jim Brown movies, and one of Brown's most successful, 1972's Slaughter. It's a low budget blaxploitation film but it doesn't really feel low budget because of good performances from Brown along with Stella Stevens and Don Gordon.

Brown plays a former Green Beret who's set on avenging his murdered father. As an actor, he's far more interesting here than he was in Dark of the Sun. Captain Slaughter is a quiet, self-contained man whose sudden wry smiles or bursts of violent anger are more arresting than the well timed gunfire in the film's copious shoot-outs.

Tarantino used music from both Dark of the Sun and Slaughter in Inglorious Basterds. Slaughter is available on Screenpix on Amazon Prime.