Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Purely Joyful Movie!

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

The most interesting thing about DRUM are the fight scenes (of course), but there are far too few (and they're far too short) to hold one's attention for long. Once again we have Ken Norton playing, well, Ken Norton. The filmmakers toss in just about every tawdry twist they can conceive, but it doesn't necessarily make the movie any more watchable; it's bottom-of-the-barrel exploitation for the sake of bottom-of-the-barrel exploitation, nothing more. More's the pity: Norton showed some potential as an actor. As a fighter, he made the most of a golden opportunity when he broke Muhammad Ali's jaw in their first fight. Although Norton didn't come close to winning the second or third fights (all 3 are on YouTube; check them out for yourself), he gave a good account of himself. Boxers gave him trouble (Ali, Jimmy Young and Larry Holmes handily out-boxed him), as did real punchers (George Foreman, Earnie Shavers, and Gerry Cooney all but decapitated him en route to easy knockout wins and he passed on a rematch with Foreman and heavy hitters like Ron Lyle and Joe Frazier were never on his list of folks to fight). He's gone, now, but he's in good company. As boxing trainer/commentator Teddy Atlas recently put it: "They've got a heck of a stable Up There."

A sort-of sequel to the rather splendid antebellum slavery melodrama Mandingo (it's based on the same novel series), Drum is less profound in its depiction of desire becoming catastrophe in a historic nightmare but it certainly contains enough to raise the eyebrows of viewers. As in Mandingo, the old South is a backdrop to transgressive sexual longings and congress, this time adding in homosexual desire (both male and female) to the mix.Drum's view of lesbianism is relatively enlightened, showing a long-term loving relationship between a fallen Southern belle turned Madame and her maidservant. This being a period of violence and tragedy, the two are soon separated by the black woman's murder. Male homosexuality is less well depicted, with a sadistic old Southern queen of a slaver and his handsome pathic being it's representatives. The old queen DeMarigny's role in the film is contradictory, as although he is the main antagonist to the handsome slave protagonist Drum, he also makes explicit the film's homoerotic glorifying in the body and sexuality of the boxer turned actor Ken Norton. The filmmakers clearly needed to disavow this homoerotic aspect to their drama, as they have Drum settling his scores with DeMarigny by ripping his genitals off with his bare fist.The film revels in its violence, cross-racial sexuality and spectacle to the extent that it feels less like Mandingo at times than the notorious slavery-Mondo film Addio zio Tom. The dialogue is salty and nasty, with liberal peppering of the "N" word and frank talk about white women's breasts and black men's "blacksnakes". Hearing as fine an actor as Warren Oates drooling "Oh you knows I likes big titties" is either hilarious or tragic, depending on what view you take. The film makes on feel like taking a bath after viewing, so foul is the world depicted therein – but this suggests to me that exploitation is the best way of drenching an audience in as disreputable and irredeemable a period of history as the slave-era. This is subject matter which would only be diluted if drenched in liberal humanism and turned into a redemption drama.Drum was advertised in the UK with the tagline "Mandingo lit the fuse, now Drum is the explosion" and the filmmakers certainly earn this as the screen does indeed erupt in chaos, riot and violence at the close. The Falconhurst mansion goes up not just in flames but in rather mystifying blasts, as if Oates' character were storing dynamite in most of the rooms. This complete destruction of the setting and most of the cast, as well as an extremely "unsatisfying" ending might be dramatically rather forced but it feels entirely appropriate for the subject matter.

I am amazed at the comments from users offended at this films content. What do they think the antebellum period was like? Do those sensitive souls imagine that plantations were run according to modern corporate standards (with human resources departments!). I think debauchery and abuse were daily occurrences. Despite its directing shortcomings, Drum is an important film that illustrates willfully ignored aspects of America's sordid history. More films depictions of this sort are needed, lest we forget.

I managed to run across DRUM'S prequel MANDINGO at a popular video store. It was in the ROMANCE category if you can believe that. It looked to be interesting so I rented it. I was surprised that it wasn't a romance movie. Rather, it was a slave drama, a rauchy but entertaining one. I went to IMBd to see reviews of what other people thought and they pretty much matched mine. I then saw references to DRUM. I actually found a copy online!! I have it and I have watched almost 10 times. Someone wondered the audience they were after for DRUM. It was 1976, the era of new permissiveness (so I have studied...I'm a 33 year-old white female). I always heard about the Blaxploitation films and have seen them (Shaft, the Pam Grier movies, Superfly, etc.). My older sister's black friends flocked to them when I was a kid and sometimes she went along. I remember her coming home and only talking about the naked scenes and tortures, but never the plot. In fact, when I used to hear them all talk about the movie together, that's ALL they talked about. The movie was showing for a long time at the DOLLAR cinemas in the 80s. She and her friends went again and talked about it the same way. So the audience the filmmakers were after the audience (black AND white)that secretly desires to see naked torture and bondage in movies, under the pretense of seeing "what slavery was really like." Maybe some of it was that way, but they CLEARLY won over blacks who seemed to mostly already know what slavery really was like, but just wanted to see their favorite black stars naked. They got away with naked bondage in DRUM and MANDINGO because slavery is a "historical" fact. As for white females like me, sure, I wanted to see the scenes of the naked black male slaves and fantasize being the character of the white daughter. That's what the filmmakers wanted. NO black person in the bunch of my sister's friends seemed to be offended. They LAUGHED about the dialogue and the situations, taking the film as more of a satire. So don't look for ANY deep meaning or take it seriously. It's just raunchy, campy fun and the only way the producers could get away with getting this on the screen...using a real situation and putting their twist on it. Certainly not a film for history majors!