Infiltrating Hollywood: Behind the Scenes of The Spook Who Sat By the Door

Don’t call Ivan Dixon’s The Spook Who Sat By the Door blaxploitation, it is revolutionary cinema. Of course, with its funky soundtrack and racially charged politics it still fits relatively easily within the general genre rubric, but the makers had something more ambitious in mind. Surviving cast-members and Sam Greenlee, the co-producer and author of the original source novel, discuss the production and legacy of the controversial film in Christine Acham and Clifford Ward’s Infiltrating Hollywood: The Rise and Fall of The Spook Who Sat By the Door (trailer here), which airs on the Documentary Channel this coming Tuesday.

TSWSBTD and The Help are two films not often mentioned in the same breath, but that sort of happened when both Infiltrating Hollywood and the mass market Civil Rights era drama won honors earlier this month at the Black Reel Awards. Somehow, TSWSBTD had been overlooked at the Academy Awards after its limited 1973 release. Helmed by actor and TV director Ivan Dixon, best known to the square for his role on Hogan’s Heroes, TSWSBTD was based on the novel by Sam Greenlee, a former Foreign Service veteran decorated for his service during the 1958 revolution in Iraq.

Admittedly, Infiltrating follows the standard behind-the-scenes feature format, but the stories of TSWSBTD are pretty fascinating, regardless of where reviewers are coming from. Though Dixon passed away in 2008, both Greenlee and his widow discuss their collaboration in depth. Despite the passage of years, Greenlee has apparently lost none of his radical fervor. Be that as it may, the production remains a triumph of independent filmmaking. Of course, they had some advantages other indie crews cannot count on, like having the Gary, Indiana Police Department at their service.

Undeniably extreme and arguably racist in its advocacy of political violence, TSWSBTD is nonetheless a hugely entertaining film. In large measure, this is due to the late Lawrence Cook’s stone cold performance as Dan Freeman, the first African American CIA officer, who uses his agency training to organize the Chicago gangs into urban guerrillas. J.A. Preston, recognizable as the presiding officer in the A Few Good Men court martial, adds all kinds of cool cred to TSWSBTD and appears in Infiltrating, helping to put the film in context. Inexplicably though, Herbie Hancock’s legendary soundtrack is never addressed in the documentary, despite the fact it continues to attract scores of fans to Dixon’s film.

However, Infiltrating continues to advance the story that the FBI sought to suppress TSWSBTD, but never really offers any evidence beyond the highly circumstantial. It is hard to blame them for printing the legend though, considering it has become an article of faith for many. Indeed, it was not the only not-blaxploitation film to feature revolutionary characters, but unlike Oscar Williams’ The Final Comedown, in which the paramilitaries are stabbed in the back by rich white New Left activists, Freeman and his guerillas really do start a violent insurrection.

Infiltrating presumes a certain audience, yet even those who are not the intended political-demographic type should still find it a fascinating time-capsule look back at an impossible to replicate film. Recommended for cult film connoisseurs, it makes its cable broadcast debut this Tuesday, February 28 at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT on Documentary Channel. For more information on finding DOC, check their website here.

Oscar’s Picks: With the Marines at Tarawa

WWII was a different time. Far from opposing the war, Hollywood went out of its way to support not just the troops, but the war effort in general. Today, the very idea of a Marine Corps produced film winning an Academy Award sounds far-fetched, yet it happened. A film like With the Marines in Tarawa would probably be derided as “jingoistic” by today’s documentary establishment, but it won the Oscar for best documentary short in 1945. Still an eye-opening account of the fighting conditions in the Pacific Theater, Tarawa airs next Tuesday on the Documentary Channel as part of Oscar’s Picks, their month-long festival of Oscar nominated and winning documentaries.

Part of the Gilbert Islands, the Tarawa atoll is pretty much in the middle of nowhere, but it suddenly took on enormous strategic significance as potential refueling base for American forces. It was brutal and costly, but digging out the Japanese entrenched on Tarawa was an important victory in the fight against the Axis. Indeed, the warfighting scenes in Tarawa were so visceral, special dispensation was needed from Pres. Roosevelt to allow the film into commercial theaters.

Directed by an uncredited Louis Hayward (the British actor, considered a poor man’s Errol Flynn, who enlisted in the U.S.M.C. following Pearl Harbor), Tarawa was filmed by a special team of military correspondents who were very definitely in harm’s way themselves. Like the rediscovered footage assembled in the History Channel special mini-series WWII in HD¸ the Tarawa crew was shooting color stock, which might seem washed out by contemporary standards, but was dramatic at the time.

War is Hell. That is pretty much the essence of Tarawa’s message. Rather than focusing on individual servicemen, Tarawa stresses the unity of the Corps and the costly price they paid for the sake of ultimate victory. Indeed, it was a different time, when it would not have been necessary to “personalize” the war.

Surprisingly straight forward, Tarawa is a film of tremendous historical importance everyone should see, and at a mere twenty minutes or so, it is hardly represents a major time investment. Yes, it is patriotic (and why shouldn’t it be?), but at its core, it is a tribute to the sacrifice of the Marines who died taking Tarawa. Tarawa airs on the Documentary Channel this coming Tuesday (3/9) and is also widely available for online screening.

Grudge Match: Misha vs. Moscow

Is he the Georgian Yeltsin or Havel? In truth, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili is probably somewhere in the middle. Having launched to national prominence during the Rose Revolution, Saakashvili has not demonstrated Havel’s unwavering commitment to human rights, nor has he completely abandoned the ideals of democracy as was the case with Yeltsin and his hand-picked successor, Vladimir Putin. Indeed, Saakashvili and Putin are most definitely not birds of a feather. Saakashvili’s tense relationship with the Russian authoritarian is the subject of John Philp’s Misha vs. Moscow (trailer here), which airs this coming Monday on the Documentary Channel.

Unquestionably, M vs. M’s greatest virtue is its impressive access to the Georgian president. Through a number of interviews and considerable candid footage of Saakashvili, viewers get a good sense of the man. The portrait that emerges very definitely suggests a western-style politician, which makes sense considering he graduated from Columbia Law School and briefly worked for an American law firm.

Philp’s treatment of Saakashvili’s rise to power and his early presidential years also seems even-handed and informative. He did indeed break from then President Eduard Shevardnadze’s thoroughly corrupt party, becoming a reformer at an opportune time. As President, he took bold steps to fight corruption, literally firing the country’s entire police force. Perhaps his most significant victory came in the Georgian Autonomous Republic of Adjara, where Saakashvili peacefully finessed the Russian backed strongman out of office.

Most man-on-the-street interviews in M vs. M are also relatively positive, giving him credit for making Georgia a much more livable environment. Yet, it is always clear Philp is not impressed. Granted, even Saakashvili appears to consider his record decidedly mixed, expressing regret for moving against the opposition broadcasting network (and rightly so).

Still, most of Philp’s scorn is reserved for Saakashvili’s foreign policy, which his talking heads universally criticize as provocative. Evidently, because Georgia borders Russia, it should be more deferential to Russian foreign policy, recognizing their place within what Putin considers Russia’s rightful sphere of influence. Therefore, pursuing fast-track NATO membership is a rash and de-stabilizing course of action. Of course, by the same token, Philp ought to agree Nicaragua should subordinate its foreign policy to that of America (after all, it is in our sphere of influence, right?).

While M vs. M’s expert analysis clearly comes from a stacked deck, it offers an opportunity to hear Saakashvili speak for himself. This is not without value, particularly considering the jury is still out on how his presidency will ultimately be characterized. He has shown flashes of brilliance as well as major Yeltsinesque disappointments, but based on the antipathy he has inspired from the neo-Soviet Putin, one suspects history will be more generous than Philp. M vs. M has its world television premiere this coming Monday (1/25) at 8:00 PM (E.S.T.) on the Documentary Channel.