Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1014407
24 CINEMONTAGE / Q3 2018 ACE, five years before he began his long collaboration with Steven Spielberg. He and Dixon had become friends over the years that they both had worked on Hogan's Heroes, and he also cut Trouble Man. Assistant editor on both Trouble Man and Spook was Thomas Penick, who went on edit Charles Burnett's My Brother's Wedding (1983). "I was editing what Ivan sent me as he shot, and he came whenever he could," Kahn commented to CineMontage. "It didn't feel faked. On the stronger scenes, I went for the jugular; I liked the handheld shots in the riot scene… The story in the novel and the script was well told, and I enjoyed the message." While editing continued into early 1973, Greenlee's community roots enabled him to find music for Spook. Like him, Chicago documentary filmmaker Bernard Williams, who had helped with the Chicago guerilla- style shoot, had attended Hyde Park High School, as had jazz keyboardist Herbie Hancock and Hancock's sister, Jean, who was a close friend. Williams informed CineMontage, "Jean set up a meeting with me and Herbie. He knew Sam and he knew the book and he put together a recording of a variety of original compositions that Sam could use as he pleased in The Spook." Hancock's music for the film strongly reflects the innovative electronic sounds and funky rhythms that were evolving into his best-selling album Headhunters, released in late 1973. Meanwhile, in LA, Dixon shopped a 10-minute trailer of the movie's action scenes around to the studios. Thinking they had a hot 'blaxploitation' picture, UA put up $150,000 to complete post. Greenlee told Martin and Wall, "When they saw the final cut, they were outraged. I said, 'You required six copies of the script. Don't blame me if y'all can't read. We've got a damn contract!'" In accordance with that contract, UA released The Spook. In 1975, in Alexandria, Virginia, Bokari Ltd. filed a civil action suit against 13 prominent intelligence figures, all currently or previously officers in the CIA or NSA. In the suit, Dixon, Greenlee and attorney Neusom claimed, "...[T]he CIA and the NSA defendants, by colluding and conspiring with United Artists did bar the plaintiffs' motion picture...from viewing houses... because of the content of the picture which they adjudged objectionable." The suit also alleged, "...[O]n or about and after November 28, 1973...the CIA and NSA defendants communicated with United Artists regarding the release and distribution of the picture...," and went on to state, "[A]s a direct and proximate result of said actions by the defendants, plaintiffs have and are suffering grievous financial injuries, all to their damage in the sum of 50 million dollars." CineMontage has been unable to determine the results of the suit, or if it was ever heard, settled or decided. Nevertheless, as the late actor Paul Butler (who portrayed the Cobra/Black Freedom Fighters leader and, in 1990, the family patriarch of Charles Burnett's To Sleep with Anger), pronounced in Infiltrating Hollywood, "The Spook Who Sat by the Door is the most political film of the 'blaxploitation' era, and maybe one of the most political films that's come out of Black America... The spirit on the set was basically one of rebellion and defiance." The last word remains with Greenlee, who died in 2014. On the 2004 DVD release, he stated, "I'm not trying to recruit, proselytize or convince anybody. I want to shake up 'the Man' and people to look at that movie and go out of there thinking — and I think I've accomplished that purpose." f THIS QUARTER IN FILM HISTORY CONTINUED FROM PAGE 22 The Spook Who Sat by the Door. United Artists/ Photofest