Watermelon Man
Melvin Van Peebles’s only foray into Hollywood filmmaking, Watermelon Man is one of the most audacious, radically conceived works to be financed by a major American studio in the 1970s. Comedian Godfrey Cambridge delivers a virtuoso performance (initially in whiteface) as Jeff Gerber, a loudmouthed, bigoted white insurance salesman whose sitcomlike suburban existence is jarringly upended when he wakes up to discover, in a wild spin on Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, that he has become a Black man. What ensues is a ferocious satire of society’s racist double standards that gradually transforms into an empowering portrait of awakening Black consciousness, executed with a mix of acerbic irreverence and deadly serious political commentary by a relentlessly subversive Van Peebles.
Available In
Collector's Set
Cast
- Godfrey Cambridge
- Jeffrey Gerber
- Estelle Parsons
- Althea Gerber
- Scott Garrett
- Burton Gerber
- Erin Moran
- Janice Gerber
- Howard Caine
- Mr. Townsend
- Mantan Moreland
- Joe
- Kay E. Kuter
- Dr. Wainwright
- D’Urville Martin
- Bus driver
- Kay Kimberly
- Erica
Credits
- Director
- Melvin Van Peebles
- Produced by
- John B. Bennett
- Executive producer
- Leon Mirell
- Written by
- Herman Raucher
- Director of photography
- W. Wallace Kelley
- Music by
- Melvin Van Peebles
- Film editor
- Carl Kress
- Music editor
- Ralph Hall
