(Blaxploitation) John O. Killens (screenplay) SLAVES (Jul 5, 1968) Film script

Np: [Slaves Production Company]. 1968. Vintage original film script, plain wrappers, brad bound, mimeograph, 113 pp. Title page dated July 5, 1968, and credited to director Herbert Biberman, John O. Killens, and Alida Sherman. With a 5 x 7″ (13 x 18 cm) production photo laid in. Under working title The Slaves. This script belonged to Phil Leto, who was the film’s hairdresser. He has left various hair and makeup notes on the versos of the script.  With various creases to text, and vertical creases to wrappers, very good+. 

Herbert Biberman was a formerly blacklisted writer-director. John O. Killens is recognized as having been the spiritual father of the Black Arts Movement.

The film stars Dionne Warwick (in her screen acting debut), Ossie Davis and Stephen Boyd. Set in the 1850s Southern United States, the film follows Cassy and Luke, two black slaves who are sold to the sadistic plantation owner MacKay. He wants labor from the men and sex from the women. On this, he is determined to exploit both Cassy and Luke. The film depicts a Kentucky slave who ends up on the Mississippi plantation of a brutal sadistic man. (Wikipedia)

The historical value of the script lies in Killens’ contribution as well as its being so early an entry in the Blaxploitation cycle. Bogle, Blacks in American Films, p. 192: “An early attempt to reach the then-new evolving black movie audience.”