And now for something completely different!
Ok, this one likely needs a bit of back story. Once upon a time, I was sitting in my bedroom at around one in the morning, drinking beer, eating Pringles and watching Star Trek. You know the way it goes. The Trek de jour was Deep Space Nine, the third installment in the series and a kind of spin-off of Next Generation. This one features Avery Brooks as Captain Benjamin Sisko, think black William Shatner with significantly less of an ego.
The different Star Trek Series have always had fascinating production histories, many of which I know fairly well, but about midway through an episode called Rapture, Captain Sisko is shocked in the holodeck and logically begins receiving visions of the future due the experience, that I realized that I had very little knowledge about Deep Space Nine’s history. More specifically, it was midway through the episode, when Sisko was convulsing on the floor yelling about locusts, that I realized I had no information on Avery Brook’s own acting history. Who was this man? Where did he come from? Had he always had that smooth, sexy, baritone voice that makes even the most ridiculous stories seem important?
Thus began my quest for knowledge on Avery Brooks. Like most Star Trek actors his pre-trek flimography was nothing extensive, but he had been in at least one movie. Thus we have the subject of today’s review, the 1987 made for TV adaptation of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” The movie is incredibly rare, not available on DVD, and I spent way more time than I’d like to admit trying to track it down more for the challenge of the hunt rather than anything else. Now I have it… and all that’s left to do is watch it…Oh boy…
Let’s see, director for this was Stan Lathan, you’ve probably never heard of him and there’s a reason for that, and the movie itself premiered on Showtime, yet another reason you likely never watched it. As for the cast, Avery Brooks stars as Uncle Tom and that’s pretty much it…the chick who played Margo in “Big Trouble in Little China” makes a brief appearance…and…wait…SAMUEL L. JACKSON IS IN THIS?! Holy shit, this is unexpected. But yeah, he plays an escaped slave by the name of George Shelby; not a terribly important character in the narrative but the movie makes sure to give him at least one scene where Jackson is allowed to deliver a badass speech to some slave hunters. Also, I love how he gets bigger billing in the end credits than Avery Brooks.
For those of you as unfamiliar with the story as I was, Uncle Tom’s Cabin is the story of a slave, Tom, who lived and worked at relatively kind plantation along with his wife and son. However, when the plantation begins losing money Tom’s Master decides to sell Tom down the river to a slave trader from New Orleans. There’s a particularly affecting scene near the beginning where Tom is chained up and forcibly separated from his family, while the son of the plantation owner, the one who gave Tom the name “Uncle Tom,” swears to raise enough money to eventually buy him back home. The remainder of the narrative focuses on Tom’s trips through the south, being sold from plantation to plantation and the lives of the various other slaves and white slave masters around him.
So, now for the one million dollar question: Is it any good? Well… it’s a mixed bag. On the plus side, this does have a reputation as being one of the best and most faithful adaptations of the book available. I haven’t read the book, but judging from this the story is a very good one. It doesn’t take the obvious, lazy road of pounding a message about equality into your head. Rather, the film tries to show slavery from all points, good and bad, in order to show that even when slave owners have the best of intentions, the institution of slavery is just a fundamentally flawed system. Also, most of the acting, especially that of the main lead, is quite solid, with the exception of every God-awful child actor that makes an appearance.
On the downside, this movie looks and sounds REALLY cheap. Granted this is a made for TV movie from the 80s so you’d likely expect problems like that, but here it can get just plain sad at times. For example, when one of Tom’s owners gets stabbed to death in a drunken bar fight not only can the production not afford to show any blood, they actually have to resort to having the assailant stick a clearly plastic knife in between the man’s arm and chest, like how little kids stage death scenes in elementary school plays. Yikes.
Actually, in the time since I watched the movie, I’ve discovered that someone has put the entire thing up on YouTube in 9 parts. It appears to be the same recording I saw, complete with the same clearly scripted interview section in the beginning where a black college student reads off of a card explaining that the story itself is not racist. The audio in the YouTube versions appears worse than in the recording I have, but you can still make out what’s going on well enough.
So do I recommend it? Well, if the subject matter seems interesting to you than sure why not give it a watch. Just be sure you know exactly what you’re getting yourself into, a made for TV movie from the 80s. If nothing else, it’s a good chance to culture yourself with a great American classic for free. Certainly worse ways to kill time if you’re bored. It also finally answers the question for me as to what else Avery Brooks did besides Star Trek. He also recently appeared in a documentary by William Shatner about the various Star Trek Captains. I think I know what my next review is going to be about…
