'Dutchman' film poster
With apologies to scorching New York City subway scenes in Oscar-winning The French Connection (1971); the taut The Incident (1967) and the thrilling The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)—all featuring big-name actors—by far the most realistic Manhattan train events were portrayed in Dutchman (1966).
Based on a 1964 play by Leroi Jones, a.k.a. Imamu Amiri Baraka, it was first performed at the Cherry Lane Theater in Greenwich Village. Yet, although filmed at the Twickenham Studios in England, it accurately captured the kind of sexual, often explosive interracial hijinks that take place on subways all over New York.
As a long-time, frequent rider throughout the city, I can attest to the stark reality portrayed in Dutchman. Indeed, I have witnessed any number of fairly similar events. These days, of course, city residents are more concerned with wackos who push people off station platforms onto the tracks as trains arrive.
At any rate, I was heartened to read Russ Bickerstaff’s fine Nov. 7 online Shepherd Express review of the local production of Dutchman, which just ended its run at Sunstone Studios, 127 E. Wells St.
Bickerstaff incisively said its stars – white Hannah Ripp-Dieter and black Denzel Taylor, “…are as fearless as they are nuanced in their portrayal of a couple of people trying to relate to each other as human beings…”
But in the stunning film—a spare, 55-minute, two-character allegory in black-and-white—mature, blonde Shirley Knight as a blatantly sexual trollop, and Al Freeman Jr., as a buttoned-down, clean shaven, younger black man in a dark suit and tie on his way to a party—seem little interested in relating as human beings. Far from it.
Wearing dark glasses and clad in a short, clingy, black-and-white striped dress, the leggy Knight (Lula)—eating an apple and flaunting her sex—clearly is out to seduce Freeman (Clay). Boarding the otherwise empty subway car, she loses no time in plopping down next to him, teasing and climbing all over him after learning his name.
He stares at her body during a lengthy back-and-forth as she seductively flicks her tongue out, rubs his leg and says, “I know you want to screw me.” After a few minutes, he recoils and she gets up screaming, “You are dull. C’mon, Clay. Let’s do the nasty.” Her desires seem to be fueled, as more racially mixed passengers board.
Clay finally tires of her vocal excesses—which include calling him “an escaped nigger”—and he reaches the breaking point. As he begins to loudly express himself defensively in philosophical black pride terms, she laughs it off. And then she begins harassing other passengers, which some ignore as others cower in fear.
Near its conclusion, the sneering, sadistic Lula takes a knife out of her huge purse and viciously stabs Clay to death as he walks behind her down the aisle. As the film ends, Lula suggestively stands near another seated young black man who had boarded the again empty car, unaware of what has just happened.
A haunting musical score by John Barry enhances Dutchman—the title of which channels the myth of the Flying Dutchman ghost ship and images of Dutch ships crossing the Atlantic with slaves. Directed by Anthony Harvey, the film expertly depicts the sometimes bleak, and most times busy, atmosphere of New York subways.
When Jones-Baraka wrote the play, he was in the process of ending his interracial marriage and beginning to outwardly embrace Black nationalism. And the character of the clearly rattled Clay—prior to his death—finally does likewise in his powerful, pro-Black harangue.
In it, Clay admonishes whites for loving the music of Charlie Parker and Bessie Smith, adding that what they don’t know is that Bessie is really saying to them, “Kiss my black ass.” Somewhat ironically, he directs many of his stinging words at the other passengers in the now half-filled car, as Lula looks on.
Dutchman on film is a must see, especially for those who hear about the chaos on New York City subways but have never experienced it.
