As Steve notes in his piece on American Fiction, Academy Award nominations now attach a “diversity requirement.” As film fans should know, long before this woke nonsense black actors were turning in performances that should have gained nominations. Consider, for example, Roscoe Lee Browne as Jebediah Nightlinger in The Cowboys, from 1972.
When the ranch hands of Wil Andersen (John Wayne) run off to search for gold, the rancher hires a crew of boys to drive his cattle to Belle Fourche. Andersen takes on the cook Nightlinger and the two men get to know each other.
“You know, in the late war between the states I served under an officer just like you,” Nightlinger says.
“Is that right?”
“As a matter of fact, I shot that military gentlemen in the buttocks. Just outside Vicksburg.”
“I’d of hung ya.”
“They gave me a medal.”
“In my regiment, Mr. Nightlinger, I was known as Old Ironpants. You might keep that in mind.”
He does, and the drive rolls along in harmony, tailed by a caravan of prostitutes. Nightlinger informs madame Kate (Colleen Dewhurst) that these are just boys, so she wonders if he might be interested.
“Well, I have the inclination, the maturity, and the wherewithal,” Nightlinger explains, “but unfortunately, I don’t have the time.”
A band of rustlers led by Asa Watts (Bruce Dern) murders Andersen and hijacks the herd. Nightlinger and the boys make a plan and allow the cook to be captured.
“Since you mean to hang me, I ask to atone to my maker,” Nightlinger pleads. Watts gives him one minute.
“Where to begin? I regret trifling with married women. I’m thoroughly ashamed at cheating at cards. I deplore my occasional departures from the truth. Forgive me for taking your name in vain, my Saturday drunkenness, my Sunday sloth. Above all, forgive me for the men I’ve killed in anger – and those I am about to,” he says, as the boys spring from hiding and gun down the bad guys.
Browne is great from the start, but for that speech alone he deserved a nomination for best supporting actor. Fans could say the same for Aretha Franklin in The Blues Brothers.
Jake and Elwood Blues (John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd) are putting the band back together and locate Matt “Guitar” Murphy in Franklin’s restaurant. She tells Murphy, “We got two honkies out there dressed like Hasidic diamond merchants.” For that line alone, Franklin deserved a nomination, and she never got full respect as a singer.
Check out Aretha’s Jazz, particularly “Somewhere,” with Aretha on piano and Phil Woods on alto saxophone. Franklin renders an up-tempo “Moody’s Mood,” and “Today I Sing the Blues” is the real deal.
Meanwhile, for works by underrated black writers see Lonely Crusade by Chester Himes. Richard Wright’s Black Boy and Native Son are well known but see also his contribution to The God That Failed, where Wright explains why he left the Communist Party. In the right hands, that story would make a great movie.
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