Mr Mean (1977)

[GlacierTuba]

This one was put out by Code Red on Blu Ray. Probably another one of their Blu Ray's with a limited edition of minus 37 copies available as I can't seem to find it. I had to watch it on some 4 million in 1 DVD compilation. Maybe a Mill Creek set? I forget. There's an HD sample online though.

Anyway, no sod seems to be talking about this cheeky little film, so please look forward to some below-par drivel I wrote about this film a while back on my Letterboxd diary and regurgitated it here in case anyone is interested.





Mr. Mean is a 1977 blaxploitation masterpiece from the king himself, Fred Williamson. Mr. Mean is disappointingly, alas, not the latest blaxploitation epic based on the classic Roger Hargreaves novellas.

Mr. Mean is without a doubt one of the worst films I've ever seen. But on the other hand, actually, it isn't. I'll try to explain.

Make no mistake, Mr. Mean is a terrible film. It's poorly shot, poorly acted and the editing is absolutely criminal. Just to reinforce a point around the editing, it's so bad that scenes skip and jump with the gusto of a cable subscriber channel hopping 6837 different channels trying to find something good to watch (or in the UK, a scrounger trying to get value for all of the 11pm 5 minute satellite freeviews for a powerwank after a curry and a skinful of a Saturday night).

Not only is the editing beyond sloppy but some of it is just downright unforgivable. Several scenes start with the actors already talking but without any audio. So either you miss important plot points () or the dialogue actually starts where it's supposed to just the editor didn't trim the negative accurately enough while making the edit. It really is a piss poor effort.

Then there's the soundtrack. Hats off to Williamson for roping in the Ohio Players to do the soundtrack, which is admittedly excellent (and also available on Spotify etc). They also did the score.

Oh my God the score.

Imagine loading a troupe of elephants up on alcohol and PCP then letting them loose in a room filled with Bontempi's and recording the whole aural sonic experience. You're still not even close to just how goddamn awful the incidental music in this film is. It's beyond appalling. By the end I wanted to claw my eyes out and fill my sockets with sulphuric acid. I wished I was dead it's that bad. The incidental music score in Mr. Mean is so bad it makes the music in The Exterminator 2 sound like a Morricone masterpiece. Christ on a bike that was an awful experience. I'm going to have therapy for years for it.

Let's not forget the completely outrageous and utterly nonsenical plot, dreadful script and atrocious acting. It feels like the whole film was just cobbled together as production went along.

Well here's the punchline. It was.

From what I understand, having looked in to the history of Mr. Mean, it turns out that during filming for Inglorious Bastards (directed by Street Law and High Crime legend Enzo Castellari), Williamson wrote the story for Mr. Mean on Monday to Friday evenings and shot what he had written during the week on Saturday and Sunday. He used a bunch of the camera and lighting equipment (apparently without asking first) from the set of Inglorious Bastards and asked the crew of said film to help him shoot Mr. Mean and put it together.

Taking this in to account, along with all the negative preamble I've spouted and I end up with the resulting feeling, as the end credits roll, that I actually like this film. Despite how utterly turgid the whole thing is, there's this overwhelming sense of endearment about it. There are also some genuinely interesting moments, particularly the nice plot twist at the end.

I love how sloppily the film is put together. How hokey the whole experience is. I love that the score is so goddamn awful I wanted to throw myself off a cliff. I love how the negatives are so badly damaged that they look like they've been dragged through a hedge backwards when scanned for the Blu Ray release.

I have visions of an unshaved Bob Hoskins in Mario Bros lookalike, in a flat cap, with a cigarette in his mouth, hip flask of scotch in one hand, finger hovering over the telecine machine start/stop button with the other hand, while staring at a baseball game on a black and white portable television with poor aerial reception. Also he's probably pissed his pants, but hasn't noticed.

It tells me this film was probably laid dormant and forgotten for years and no film, no matter how terrible it is, should be left to rot in to oblivion. At the end of the day someone cared enough to make a film, no matter what the underlying reason was. The only exception being The Executioner Part 2, a film so shit that Part 1 doesn't even exist. Seriously, don't waste your time with it.

I love the atrocious acting, the non-existant plot and the air of narcissim and self-importance that oozes from every pore of this film. The whole experience doesn't even fall in to the 'so bad it's good' category, it's an entirely different trip altogether. This is the Mick Hucknall of Blaxploitation films. Pleasure at the fairground on the way, indeed...

TL;DR? I loved Mr. Mean.


BONUS FEATURE:

Here's the Ohio Players title song for Mr Mean. It's just awesome!

Mr. Mean - YouTube