Black Gunn

There's nothing like an old-fashioned blaxploitation picture, with its chukka-chukka wah-wah soundtrack, villainous white guys in bad haircuts, suave black men who know all the angles, and ridiculously fake looking blood. Black Gunn, from 1972, has all of that and more.

Jim Brown, the former football star, plays the title character, known only as Gunn. He owns a swanky night club that caters to a black clientele. His brother (Herbert Jefferson, Jr.) is in a black militant group that robs a mob-run betting parlor. This gets Gunn involved, and when his brother turns up dead, he gets mad and even.

The film was directed with typical blaxploitation style, which means abrupt cuts and at times incoherent story telling, by Robert Hartford-Davis. In addition to Brown, the cast includes Martin Landau as the chief bad guy, and other familiar faces such as Bernie Casey, Bruce Glover (father of Crispin, and the apple doesn't fall from the tree), and Gary Conway, who I used to watch years ago in Land of the Giants. Brenda Sykes is Brown's girl, and she sports a truly awesome Afro.

There are a few other athletes in the cast, notably Vida Blue, then a top pitcher for the Oakland A's. He gets feature billing, but appears in only one scene, where he gets the tar beat out of him.