Dutchman

Just under an hour in length, Dutchman is one brutal, intense subway ride in a city that is famous for them. A tract on prejudice by playwright LeRoi Jones (aka Amiri Baraka) and basically a 2-character play, think The Gin Game gone ugly with Shirley Knight on a mission of total destruction.

Put together,Clay ( Al Freeman Jr.), is on his way to a house party when Lula (Knight) on a platform finds him in her sights inside a subway car. They make casual eye contact but Lula is a type one gives more than a cursory glance. She boards and begins to seduce and slow torture Clay who now faces a breaking point.

Knight is both hot and terrifying as she plays vicious head games with hapless Clay, first attracted but eventually repelled by her sadistic humiliation of him. Freeman also has some fine moments, exhibiting rage but in the end finds himself no match for the banshee on a quest, Knight, giving one of the best and unrecognized female performances of the 60s.

Briskly directed by Anthony Harvey and excellently shot with claustrophobic doom by Gerry Turpin made all the more amazing by the fact it was shot in 5 days in England for NY, Dutchman deserves its cigar. Taut stuff.