Skip to main contentAsk any accomplished African-American filmmakers of merit or intelligence about their favorite movies, and you're likely to hear about an obscure 1973 film called The Spook Who Sat by the Door.
Spook, based on a novel by Sam Greenlee, remains one of the most important films in the canon of black cinema, as well as one of the most provocative works in the history of American film. Yet despite its influence on a generation of filmmakers, the movie has seldom been seen. That stands to change as it arrives on DVD this week, more than 30 years after it was pulled from theaters for fear of starting a race war.
The film, co-written and -produced by Greenlee, follows the story of Dan Freeman (Lawrence Cook), the first black agent in the CIA, hired after the agency is charged with racism. Quiet and unassuming, Freeman is assigned to the third sub-basement, where he is given the thankless task of running the photocopy machine, until one day he is asked to give a group of visiting politicians a guided tour of headquarters. This leads to a promotion that finds Freeman with a desk at the front office, making him the first person anyone sees when entering the CIA building--a token symbol of desegregation. He is the spook (a slang term for CIA agents, as well as a racial slur against black people) who sits by the door.
When Freeman leaves the CIA to become a social worker in his hometown of Chicago, he's assigned the difficult task of working with the King Cobras, a notoriously violent street gang. But Freeman has a hidden agenda: He's secretly training the Cobras in counterintelligence and guerrilla warfare. His ultimate goal is to set up a nationwide army of black revolutionaries that will rise up and liberate black America. When the police shoot and kill a two-bit dope dealer, the action sets off a riot, which Freeman and his army use to launch a bid for freedom.
Greenlee, a Chicago native, wrote Spook in the late 1960s, no doubt drawing inspiration from Fred Hampton, the leader of the Illinois Black Panther Party. Hampton, who was murdered by Chicago police, had tried, unsuccessfully, to recruit the Blackstone Rangers, a notorious street gang, into the Panthers. The long-running theory is that if Hampton's efforts had worked, he would have politicized an apolitical gang of thugs, turning them and the Black Panthers into a massive army of freedom fighters.
Greenlee's book was a gritty, romanticized fantasy that took the groundwork of what Hampton was doing and carried it to the next logical step. Detractors criticized the novel as an incendiary, irresponsible blueprint for terrorism, while defenders saw it as a stinging indictment of race relations.
The movie, which remains faithful to its source, plays as an angry, insightful fantasy of retribution, laced with occasional moments of dark, bitter humor, such as when Freeman sends one of his soldiers on a training mission disguised as a janitor. "A black man with a mop, tray or broom in his hand can go damn near anywhere in this country," he explains. "And a smiling black man is invisible."
The dichotomy of that scene, its comedic execution balanced with the harsh reality of racism, serves as an example of what makes the story's implications so frightening. Both the book and the film vividly capture the beginnings of the race war exploding in American streets.
When the film was released in 1973, it received mixed reviews but began pulling in record box-office receipts. Inner-city theaters in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and Oakland filled to capacity, with people lined up around the block to get in.
And then, after less than three weeks, The Spook Who Sat by the Door was pulled from theaters. It mysteriously disappeared until a decade later, when poor-quality bootlegged video copies began popping up and scratchy prints started screening at film festivals and black colleges. Both Greenlee and director Ivan Dixon assert the removal of Spook from theaters was a result of FBI pressure on the distributor, claiming the movie would incite race riots. Given the FBI's counterintelligence program tactics, code-named COINTELPRO, during that period in history, such a theory doesn't seem that far-fetched.
In its theatrical release, the film had a tremendous impact on young viewers such as filmmaker Robert Townsend (Hollywood Shuffle), who recounts the effect of the film on his career during an interview featured on the new DVD. "The Spook Who Sat by the Door changed my life," Townsend says.
After years of screenings with murky color and terrible sound, the DVD release of Spook--courtesy of filmmaker Tim Reid--features a beautiful digital remastering from the original camera negative.
The film now looks infinitely better, yet it's still rough around the edges. Dixon and company filmed the original guerrilla-style, shooting some scenes on location in Chicago without city permits on an extremely low budget; actual gang members join the actors in the cast. Despite a handful of shortcomings, the film maintains its authenticity while telling a sometimes brutal, realistic story, especially in the riot scenes, which could just as easily be documentary footage as dramatic re-creations.
After more than 30 years, The Spook Who Sat by the Door remains a provocative film. What is terrifying now, however, isn't the movie's message of revolution or the fist-in-the-air polemics--which may seem dated to some viewers--but how much the racism it depicts is still so deeply rooted in American society.
"This is not about 'hate white folks,'" Freeman says in the film. "This is about loving freedom enough to die or kill for it if need be." That sentiment makes The Spook Who Sat by the Door--and the DVD release, with its potential call to arms for a generation that wasn't alive during the '60s--more important now than ever.
WWeek 2015