BLACK SAMSON (1974)

 As well as being a great year for horror films, 1974 was also a great year for blaxploitation films and films in general.  This story of a smooth black bar-owner named Mr. Samson is a simple yet awesome flick from the golden era of exploitation movies.  Samson runs the kind of bar you would only see in a 70's movie.  For one thing he keeps his pet lion there and the thing just hangs out with all the local drunks.  Also there's strippers and a church organ that an old black fellow plays.  I'm not sure that I would want to hang out in a place like this in real life but it somehow makes sense in the movie.  As our main protagonist we get a mafia tough guy played by Mr. William Smith who's probably best known for playing the heavy in a bunch of biker flicks and if you need a bad-ass villain he's probably one of the best you can get.  He beats his woman around for fun and even throws her out of a moving car at one point.  He's also a bit on the racist side.  We know this because he calls someone a nigger in just about every other sentence.  It all culminates in a memorable scene of black pride and unity as the community traps our evil Italians in an alleyway and rains down all sorts of garbage on them which I think might be a good metaphor for paying "the man" back for all the garbage he's thrown at us or maybe it just makes a good visual.  Either way it rocks!  Check it out if you're not a jive-ass, honky, redneck racist.
 I'm kinda shocked that star Rockne Tarkington never really had any big starring roles after this since it seems natural that he woulda went on to bigger things.  His lady in this, Carol Speed is much more familiar for having big roles in everything from the classic THE MACK to ABBY, the black-EXORCIST rip-off flick.