There is a lot of opinion out there that The Klansman belongs on the list of fifty worst films of all time. It's pretty bad, but I've seen far worse.

Putting it in its proper context, The Klansman is set in the years right after the Voting Rights Act has been in force for a while. It's not lost on any of the people of this unnamed Alabama county that there is a black majority out there who if they start voting now, a lot of the power structure will be radically changed. It's the underpinning of the reason the Ku Klux Klan exists. That David Huddleston is also mayor of the town and Grand Exalted Cyclops of the local KKK chapter is a very typical Alabama story for generations.

Lee Marvin is the local sheriff and as he conceives his duty it's also to protect the good name of the town and keep the peace. Bringing criminals to justice is second place in his thinking as you'll see by his actions. Richard Burton is a local landowner whose family has long been opposed to the ways of the area, his great grandfather in fact was a judge who was hung for opposing secession before the Civil War. He has a bunch of elderly blacks he keeps on as rent free tenants which has a certain element of the town worked up.

Anyway both their efforts come to naught as there is one bloody showdown in the end.

The Klansman falls back on a lot of stereotypes, racial and otherwise, in the film. It also has a very muddled message in the end, you'll wind up scratching your head as to what all of it really means.

It also in my knowledge has the only rape scene in the history of film that you might wind up laughing at. Cameron Mitchell is Marvin's deputy and a loyal Klansman. At one point under cover of his badge he arrests Lola Falana and takes her to a warehouse where he rapes her with the rest of the white sheet boys standing around gawking. It's staged so stupidly you might actually wind up laughing. That and the fact that who could take Mitchell's character so seriously with a name like Butt Cutt Bates.

Life did imitate art however. O.J. Simpson is in this and he's a black avenger after Klansmen capture and kill a friend of his. He goes around executing the hooded swine. But we well know what happened with O.J. in real life.

Samuel Fuller pulled out of directing after changes in his script were made and Lee Marvin wanted to pull out, but couldn't because he'd signed a contract. Richard Burton was doing just about anything at this point, he just sort of saunters through the film with a very cheesy southern accent.

Pass this one by folks, pass it by.

A group of folks from Chicago attempting to register black people to vote come to a small town in Alabama run by the Klan. Things get out of hand and folks get killed.

I watched the edited version minus the rape and castration scene. The also took out the swearing but left in the "N" word. Lee Marvin plays a sheriff attempting to keep a powder keg from exploding. OJ Simpson plays a killer of white people. I actually cheered his character until he opened his mouth. Richard Burton plays an early prototype of the super hero special ops war veteran. The situation seemed a bit over the top. The Staple Singers supplied some whack-a-da tunes.

Infamous film starring Richard Burton and Lee Marvin about the rape of a white woman in small southern town. Its decided that the person responsible is a black man played by OJ Simpson. They go after him with an unbridled zeal while Richard Burton (with a bum leg that comes and goes depending upon the shot) and Lee Marvin try to keep the peace. This film came to my attention in one of the Medved's worst film anthologies. I don't know if I would consider it a worst film of all time, however I will say that its one of the most wrong headed. Its the sort of message movie that Hollywood did in the 1960's and which deteriorated quickly into movie of the week on TV. This is a movie of the week with an "A" movie cast. I think this might have worked but the cast doesn't work on any level. Its often as simply as the wrong casting of Welshman Richard Burton as a Southerner. At other times its incredibly silly as it tries to sell us on the evils of racism with David Huddleston as the Mayor of the town and lead Klansman a role that he played for laughs as Olson Johnson in Blazing Saddles the same year (and elsewhere any other times). I admire the film trying to take on an evil straight on but its just all wrong. Its a turkey, yes but not one of the worst films of all time.