The Endangered List (Case File #157)

Rated X, for excellence in violence

BOGARD (1975)

Starring

Richard Lawson

Dabney Coleman

Robert Burr

Annazette Chase

Joseph Ruskin

Sherry Boucher

Directed by
Timothy Galfas

Story by

Tim Kelly

Screenplay

By

Tim Kelly

and

Melvyn Frohman

Music by

Ed Townsend

Produced by

Peter S. Traynor

and

William D. Sklar

Released by

L-T Films

MPAA rating: X

Above: BOGARD sneak preview - New York - January 17, 1975

The Independent Film Journal says...

Heavily violent saga of a black streetfighter who finds himself locked into a Mafia stable and finally breaks loose to return in an already completed sequel, BOGARD II. Not badly constructed as these things go and the X-rated savagery and steamy sex should prompt healthy business from the black action crowd.

Even though the tide of blaxploitation product has ebbed somewhat over the past year or so, audiences are always receptive to a soft-spoken black hero who can let loose with the dynamite fists and whip into the white Mafia establishment when the chips are down. The latest incarnation of this tough, mythic dude is Leroy Fiske (Richard Lawson), a trim black streetfighter who gets wangled into risking his life by the mob, finally wants out and has to kill his way to the top to get it. Marked by an unusually vicious racist angle, BOGARD features lots of graphic fighting (earning it its X-rating), a couple of long and steamy sex encounters, and a strong enough sympathetic identification with the hero to guarantee strong audience support in black urban strongholds.

BOGARD has an added edge on the competition by being the first exploitation feature to introduce a new plot hinge – stables of fighters paid by the mob to rip each other apart in deserted warehouse areas for a crowd of paying and betting customers. Since the winner gets a hefty purse, the story takes on the proportions of a latter-day boxing flic, though thoroughly updated with the trappings of savage kicking, ample bloodletting and white-hot racial conflict. Storyline follows Leroy into the stable of a shifty mobster kingpin, and on to champion status, whereupon he learns that his boss has enlisted a crooked cop (Dabney Coleman) to take back most of his money as “protection.” After Leroy’s friend and trainer is sold to a rival stable and the two of them fight to the death like unwilling gladiators, he wants out, fights one last fight against a bald, superhumanly ugly ogre named Moose, and finally breaks away from the mob.

The last five minutes or so of the film are actually a quickly edited sequence of coming attractions from BOGARD II in which Leroy becomes a gang kingpin in his own right and inspires a lot more crowd-pleasing bloodletting. By the time the coming attractions come on screen, the initial storyline – which includes a brief encounter with a white heiress who uses Leroy for his body and then tosses him away – has completely dissipated, leaving only the fights to maintain audience pleasure. Which, judging from the vocal cheers at a recent New York unspooling, BOGARD succeeds at with flying, blood-red colors.

The Independent Film Journal (March 19, 1975, p. 26, 29)

BOGARD and its sequel, GET FISK (a.k.a. BOGARD II), were filmed back-to-back. Despite the fact that BOGARD was originally released with the trailer for BOGARD II attached at the end, the sequel never came out. According to some sources, it was never even completed.

***

GET FISK
a.k.a. BOGARD II

Starring
Richard Lawson
Stephanie Faulkner
John Dewey-Carter
Nicholas Worth

Assistant Director
Wes McAfee

Associated Producers
Mel Frohman
Charles Mulvehill

***

Beginning in September 1976, BOGARD was reissued as BLACK STREET FIGHTER by New Line Cinema, a company that had found recent success with the Sonny Chiba movies THE STREET FIGHTER, RETURN OF THE STREET FIGHTER and SISTER STREET FIGHTER. The most extreme violence in BOGARD was cut to secure an R rating for BLACK STREET FIGHTER, which is also missing the BOGARD II trailer.

Meanwhile, footage from the (unfinished?) sequel was combined with scenes from BOGARD to make BLACK FIST. This version -- which credits two directors, additional producers and editors, and features a new soundtrack -- was submitted to the MPAA as a wholly different film independent of BOGARD and BLACK STREET FIGHTER. Released beginning in July 1977, this is the version that has been readily available on home video since the start of the 1980s. The X-rated BOGARD disappeared in 1975 and the R-rated BLACK STREET FIGHTER hasn't been seen since New Line pulled it from the action track in the mid '80s. Neither cut has ever been released on a home video format.

BLACK FIST (1977)

Starring
Richard Lawson
Annazette Chase
Philip Michael Thomas
Robert Burr
Dabney Coleman
Charles L. Hamilton
Denise Gordy
Richard Kaye
Ed Rue
John Wesley Rodgers
Ron Carson
Al Checco
Joseph Ruskin
Carolyn Calcote
Morris Buchannan
Eddie Crawford
Nicholas Worth
H.B. Haggerty
Larry Rice
Stephanie Faulkner
Troas Hayes
Casey Jones
Nick Dallas
William Peele, Jr.
Lionel Davis
Pak San
Earl
Bishop F.C. Mounger
Martin the Wonderdog
Edward James Olmos

Directed by
Timothy Galfas

Additional Sequences
Directed by
Richard Kaye

Written by
Tim Kelly

Additional Sequences
Directed by
Andrew Maisner
&
Richard Kaye

Produced by
Richard Kaye
William Larrabure

Executive Producer
Charles L. Hamilton

Director of Photography
William Larrabure

Edited by
Andrew Maisner

Music Scored by
Ron Carson
Art Freeman
Richard Kaye

A
Worldwide Films
release

MPAA rating: R