The problem with the 1971 comedy "The Skin Game" is the same as with the award-winning 1997 "Life Is Beautiful": slavery is not funny and trying to use concentration camps or slave auctions for comedy besmirches the audience. A light touch is not enough to overcome the horror of the basic reality.
There are few touches lighter than that of James Garner in his prime. Garner was a charming, amoral, con man many times: never as smart as he supposed himself to be, but with a winning smile and an even more winning shrug when he was outsmarted or outguessed.
Ed Asner who manages to both outsmart and outgun Garner had charm that was as yet undiscovered in 1971. There is none of the cuddliness of Lou Grant in his portrayal of a collector of runaway slaves, though there is a malicious wit to the way he portrays runaway hunter Plunkett.
Lou Gossett, unrecognizable with hair (his own, I think) is certain eventually to fall into Plunkett's hands, although he is freeborn ("in the Garden State of New Jersey, where there haven't been slaves in four generation," as he tries to explain to the Texas plantation (?!) owner who buys him from Plunkett. Jason O'Rourke (Gossett) is actually the smarter of a pair of cons who crisscross Missouri selling him, escaping, and selling him again. Gossett gets many of the wittier lines, lines approaching gallows humor. He also is called on to alternate between a fast-talking emancipated northern Negro and the verbally shuffling, bashful southern slave way of speaking. The best rationale for the movie is the opportunity it gave Gossett.
After Plunkett separates the con men and gets Quincy (one of Garner's character's name, the one Jason calls him) jailed, Quincy gets another partner who is smarter than he is, a skilled pickpocket named Ginger (among other names), played by Susan Clark (best-known for the tv series "Webster" with her real-life husband Alex Karras and with Emmanuel Lewis). The two impersonate missionaries to lepers, another comic scheme in questionable taste. (Jason also gets a love interest, Naomi, played by Brenda Sykes).
The action sequences, include a raid by John Brown on a slave auction at which Jason was bringing in big bucks, and various escapes are perfunctorily filmed. The film relies mostly on the irritated buddy dialogue (including that between both of Quincy's partner and him), which is somewhat surprising in that the screenplay was written by Peter Stone, who had written some stylish 1960s thrillers (Charade, Mirage, Arabesque) as well as the stageplay and screenplay "1776" (showing some familiarity with American history).
Quincy and Ginger are so completely devoid of racism and contemptuous of those who buy human beings as to be unbelievable as white confidence-game operators of 1857. Their roles strike me as white Hollywood self-congratulation at a moral superiority that is highly suspect. Ultimately, as in the 1968 Sydney Pollack movie "The Scalphunters" with Burt Lancaster unwillingly getting Ossie Davis as a slave and then recapturing him, there is a queasy feeling involved in laughing at any aspect of slavery, but these productions provided vehicles for very talented black actors (Davis and Gossett) to advertise human dignity in part by showing considerable native wit (bother ingenuity and quick repartee).
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