The Watermelon Man (1970)

Synopsis: Melvin Van Peebles follows up his unjustly overlooked THE STORY OF A THREE-DAY PASS with this blunt, original, and highly unusual satire of race in America. Jeff Gerber (Godfrey Cambridge) is a white middle-class racist who makes a living as an insurance salesman. After work, he takes the bus... Melvin Van Peebles follows up his unjustly overlooked THE STORY OF A THREE-DAY PASS with this blunt, original, and highly unusual satire of race in America. Jeff Gerber (Godfrey Cambridge) is a white middle-class racist who makes a living as an insurance salesman. After work, he takes the bus home to spend time with his wife, Althea (Estelle Parsons), and his two children. One day Jeff awakens to find that he has inexplicably metamorphosed into a black man. He unsuccessfully attempts to powder his skin and return its pallor, and he visits a doctor hoping to discover the cause for his remarkable transformation. In the meantime, he must continue with his daily routine, which becomes a painful lesson in the repugnant nature of racism. Encountering prejudice almost everywhere he goes, Jeff is eventually seduced by a curious white coworker and is bought out by his skeptical neighbors, who fear that his presence will depreciate the value of their homes. All the while, he yearns for a return to his normal self, for the days when he was treated like a human being. Van Peebles, working from a highly charged script by Herman Roucher, approaches his important theme using a new approach--comedy--and comes up with a provocative, landmark cinematic achievement. [More]