New Restoration

“Occupies a singular place in the history of American political cinema … Like Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers and Burn!, in Spook the urban underclass constitutes the vanguard for revolutionary change.”

Michael T. Martin & David Wall, Library of Congress

Embodying and subverting the tenets of Blaxploitation, The Spook Who Sat by the Door is an open-hearted piece of political cinema. Director Ivan Dixon (Trouble Man) hits the genre’s expected markers: wide shots, deadpan humour, and an extraordinary score (by Herbie Hancock). But in place of an iconic action hero there’s Dan Freeman (Lawrence Cook), a covert objector to the liberal incrementalism of America’s violently racist and classist society. He’s trained by the CIA as part of a reluctant integration effort, then returns home to Chicago. What follows—college-friend reunions and community-organized armed resistance, for a start—is satirical and uncompromising enough that the film was intimidated out of circulation by the FBI. (Dixon says retitling canisters of his film’s negative spared their seizure and destruction.) While he never directed another feature, Dixon said this film is everything he wanted to say; his legacy extends to Spike Lee and John Singleton.

Restored by the Library of Congress and The Film Foundation. Funding provided by the Hobson/​Lucas Family Foundation.

“Possibly the most radical of the ​‘Black exploitation’ films of the ​’70s … Corrosively ironic and often exciting, Ivon Dixon’s [film] remains one of the great missing (or at least unwritten) chapters in Black political filmmaking.”

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

“One of my favourite films … [It] masqueraded as something Hollywood wanted … A very beautiful, efficiently made film with very sharp turns.”

Ephraim Asili, director (The Inheritance)
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