Solomon King, 1974.

Also released as Black Agent, Lucky King.
I watch a lot of silent movies – I don’t talk about them here but I watch them a lot while I’m playing D&D as something to have on in the background. Due to the fact that 100 years have passed since this age of film, lost films happen with some frequency. The old film was extremely flammable and there’s movies we’ll never get a chance to see. What I don’t come across as often are lost blaxploitation films from the 70s. Maybe there’s lots but I certainly haven’t heard of them. Until now at least. Solomon King was made by a department store salesman after crowdfunding the entire film in an attempt to make a blaxploitation film that was less appropriative of black culture or something to that effect. By blacks for blacks. Quite admirable though I’m not sure what this film does that Rudy Ray Moore doesn’t. Anyways, this film was considered lost for about 40 years until 2 shoddy prints were used to create a decent-looking restoration. I always love stories like this. An ancient treasure from ages long past recovered. Exciting. Actors appear to be friends and family members of Mr Sal Watts and not that I know the first thing about baseball but a feller named Tito Fuentes who played for the San Francisco Giants is in this film in some capacity.

The plot to this is that Solomon King, an ex-Green Beret is on protection detail for a Middle Eastern princess and she gets whacked, so a war of revenge is waged. We’re in luck as this includes a fair amount of shitty attempts at kung fu, not unlike a Dolemite flick. It’s not quite as cheesy as Dolemite but there’s still some good slo-mo use and ridiculous over-acting when someone gets smacked. The gun-play is equally entertaining and has people rag-dolling all over the place when shot with gouts of blood spraying all over the room. This comes to a sweet climax when Mr King gets all of his old army buddies together to storm a Turkish castle that looks suspiciously like a stock photo of a German castle from its exterior shots and like a couple of decorated carboard boxes on the interior. Set design aside, watching the commandos cover these guys in thick coats of fake blood is grand fun.

With Mr Watts being a men’s clothier as a day-job, the costuming in this film is fantastic. These guys got style. Lots of turtlenecks, gold chains, bellbottoms, tight leather jackets, and suits with crazy patterns. I myself own such a suit that I inherited from my grandfather which he bought in the 70s in New Orleans. I’d post a picture but it’s packed away right now. Sorry. It’s cream with brown checkers and it’s pretty slick. Anyways, the music matches the clothes here with a pretty funky soul soundtrack with tracks sung by Jimmy Lewis of Drifters fame and others performed by Formula V. There’s a spectacular club scene in which a song I believe is called Sister Sheila is performed and the band’s moves are great – very much like the Temptations meet the Jackson 5.

There’s a lot of pretty nice looking sets of wheels in this ranging from a Camaro to a Continental to a Maserati with a car phone, to a Jaguar but more importantly there’s VAN ALERT VAN ALERT VAN ALERT We have a 1969 Ford Econoline! It’s briefly used around the 25 minute mark for a crook to escape from assassinating the princess. There’s also a 1972 Ford Pinto (the one that would explode when you rear-ended it) which is all well and good but it’s used as a shield in a shoot-out. Now THAT’S dangerous.

In terms of the 3 B’s, we have for sure Blood, no Beasts, and maybe Breasts. I say maybe because I got up to go pee during a boring sex scene. The blood is a wonderful mix of ketchup and red paint. It doesn’t show up often but when it does, they lay it on thick. This was a really fun movie and really impressive how entertaining it was considering it was filmed for 140,000$ (about a million USD today). Usually with these low budgets the films lure you in with a good title and poster and deliver 90 minutes of people talking. This had enough good action to really keep me engaged and when they couldn’t dazzle me with violence, they dressed the screen in the finest examples of style from the 20th century. Definitely not the best film I’ve ever seen but I would gladly put it on again if I was hanging out with some friends. The restoration was really good with minimal odd cuts and sound issues. The film itself is good enough on its own but with the added respect owed for making this film watchable, I think it’s more than deserving of a Two Thumbs Up Seal of Approval.