This combination of live-action and animation from director and legendary animator Ralph Bakshi begins with a prison break in Oklahoma (shot in live-action), from which the whole story springs.
A country preacher (playwright Charles Gordone) and a big old country boy named Samson (singer Barry White) set out to heist a pair of pals from a state prison.
The two men – outside the walls but waiting in the shadow of a guard tower for the getaway car – are an old-timer named Pappy (Scatman Crothers) and Randy (Philip Thomas), a fiery youngster.
To pass the time and calm his young friend, Pappy starts spinning a yarn that is essentially Uncle Remus updated.
This (animated) section revolves around a roguish black trio: a loyal but dim-witted bear (voiced by Barry White), a cunning fox (voiced by Gordone) and a smooth and quick-tempered rabbit (voiced by Thomas).
Brothers Bear, Fox and Rabbit flee the South after a fatal brush with the sheriff and head for the heard-about glories of Harlem. The “glories” include a young deserted mother nursing her child in a ratty room and an ancient scavenger of trash cans.
Keeping their country wits about them, the three visitors take on Harlem on its own terms and cleverly exterminate a shyster preacher, a racist cop and a Mafia family.
In Pappy’s telling of the new black urban folktale full of Superflypimps, prostitutes, boxers – everything that had come to be known as ‘Black culture’ in the 1970s (based on Bakshi’s own experiences as a former ghetto dweller in New York) – the three brothers make it all the way with the help of the old reliable tar baby ploy.
Whether the live-action prison rescue also makes it all the way is less certain. Bakshi ends Coonskin in a nice ambiguity, hinting at survival, if not glorious victory, but also leaving the impression that what we’ve seen is a myth within a myth.
Some critics believed Bakshi had no right to make a picture about Blacks. He strongly refuted those voices and received support from a large cross-section of African Americans, from bartenders, pimps and other shady denizens of Harlem (where he filmed with a hand-held camera, often alone and at night) to Charles Gordone and Aretha Franklin.
Nobody ever accused Bakshi of pulling his punches, however, and the targets here are corrupt cops, the Mafia, fake preachers, synthetic revolutionaries, exploiters of every kind and colour, and WASP America at large (symbolised by a super-bosomy blue-eyed blonde in red, white and blue hotpants who seduces black men to death).
The film is certainly more determinedly anti-white than anti-black but was subject to numerous protests by the CORE (Congress of Racial Equality).
After the group disrupted the premiere screening, Ben Gage was hired to re-record some of Barry White’s dialogue to remove alleged “racist references and vulgarity”.
“Only middle-class blacks, who are as screwed-up as middle-class whites, could be offended by what I’m saying”, Bakshi said, railing against the action by CORE. “I made Coonskin for street people. It’s about street people – people who aren’t constantly monitoring themselves or examining themselves”.
The film’s producer, Albert S Ruddy, added that this was “CORE needing a spotlight”, arguing that their protest “doesn’t reflect young black thought”.
The NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), on the other hand, wrote a letter describing the film as “a difficult satire” but supporting it.
Samson/Brother Bear (voice)
Barry White Preacherman/Preacher Fox (voice)
Charles Gordone Pappy/Old Man Bone (voice)
Scatman Crothers Randy/Brother Rabbit (voice)
Philip Thomas Clown (voice)
Danny Rees Referee (voice)
Buddy Douglas Mime (voice)
Jim Moore Miss America/Marrigold (voice)
Jesse Welles Cop with megaphone (voice)
Ralph Bakshi Mannigan/Ruby (voice)
Frank DeKova The Godfather (voice)
Al Lewis Sonny (voice)
Richard Paul
Director
Ralph Bakshi
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A country preacher (playwright Charles Gordone) and a big old country boy named Samson (singer Barry White) set out to heist a pair of pals from a state prison.
Keeping their country wits about them, the three visitors take on Harlem on its own terms and cleverly exterminate a shyster preacher, a racist cop and a Mafia family.
Nobody ever accused Bakshi of pulling his punches, however, and the targets here are corrupt cops, the Mafia, fake preachers, synthetic revolutionaries, exploiters of every kind and colour, and WASP America at large (symbolised by a super-bosomy blue-eyed blonde in red, white and blue hotpants who seduces black men to death).
“Only middle-class blacks, who are as screwed-up as middle-class whites, could be offended by what I’m saying”, Bakshi said, railing against the action by CORE. “I made Coonskin for street people. It’s about street people – people who aren’t constantly monitoring themselves or examining themselves”.
