Also known as Black Mandingo, this odd sexualized melodrama set in the deep south while slavery was still a part of American life follows the exploits of a young man named Yankee Caleb (Tim Kincaid, the director of the amazing Riot On 42nd St. and oodles upon oodles of gay porno movies) who sets down in the burgeoning city of New Orleans. Before long, he's gambled away all of his money to a man named Cesar Dupree (George Lupo). Down on his luck, his family members offer him some kindness and charity but Caleb is a proud man and instead decides to take a job as a teacher to earn some much needed income.

In Louisiana at this time, all of the Caucasian women receive their educations in the local convents, so through some clever string pulling by way of Caleb's cousin's husband Antoine (Robert Priest) he winds up with a job where he'll be responsible for a class of women known as Quadroons (who are basically half black/half white women). These women are actually being farmed out as mistresses of many of the local Creole male populace. As susceptible to the ways of love as any other man, Caleb soon falls for a gorgeous Quadroon woman named Coral (Kathrine McKee) but they can't ever act on their feelings for one another because that nasty old Cesar Dupree has got his eyes on the fine looking Coral and wants her for himself - unless, that is, Caleb, takes Cesar down in a duel and wins Coral for his own...

Obviously shot fast and cheap, Quadroon looks very much like the low budget picture that it is. The acting is almost always wooden and rarely impressive and if the central performers aren't underplaying things, they're going way too far over the top to ever be taken seriously. The cast here are melodramatic to a fault and you can't help but walk away from all of this feeling like you've just watched a really bad soap opera, which, at its core, is basically what this film is.

The movie does benefit from some okay locations which make for a fine back drop as well as some noticeably good costumes, but exploitation films will realize soon after the movie starts that t his picture is really not all that trashy. The taboo interracial love affair angle doesn't ever sizzle like they way you'd want it to and compared to Mandingo, a similarly themed film, this picture actually seems more than a little bit tame. Much of the novelty that the film offers up stems simply from the fact that Tim Kincaid plays the lead. Better known in certain circles as one Joe Gage, it's somewhat amusing to see a man who would become such a prominent figure in the gay porno movie industry of the seventies and eighties show up here essentially trying to woo a damsel in a bit of distress.

While the film isn't the most politically correct picture ever made, it never delves that deep into the racial tensions that should be running so high would afford it the opportunity to. Politics are never explored, details and plot devices used merely as convenient exits from various storylines and while the more dated aspects of the production do offer up some camp value, the end result is a fairly pedestrian film that, while ripe with regional quirks and oddity, is actually a bit on the dull side.

NOTE: THIS REVIEW IS BASED ON A TEST DISC THAT MAY OR MAY NOT REPRESENT FINISHED RETAIL PRODUCT.

Video:

Saturn Productions presents Quadroon in a fairly unimpressive 1.78.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer. Aside from the fact that the transfer is interlaced, the unrestored image shows frequent print damage and color fading. Detail is mediocre throughout and skin tones often look fairly washed out. That said, the image is watchable enough. There aren't any problems with mpeg compression artifacts or edge enhancement but it's obvious that there wasn't a whole lot of effort put into the image quality here. While the market for this disc is obviously going to be limited, it's still disappointed. But hey, at least it's in anamorphic widescreen so there's that, but it's hard to say if this is actually the right aspect ratio or not. Most of the time compositions look good, but there are some scenes that look a bit tight.

The Audio:

The audio chores are handled by an English language Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono track. There's the odd pop in the mix and some minor background hiss in certain scenes but dialogue is easy enough to understand and the score and sound effects are all well balanced. The film shows its age in that it has got a fairly limited range but you can't fault it for that. For an older mono mix, it could have been worse - but it also could have been better, as there's a brashness to much of the mix that's noticeable throughout in the high end.