With the recent confirmation of Jamie Foxx playing the lead role in Django Unchained, I thought this was a good time to check out a film that’s been often compared to the upcoming production…The Legend of Nigger Charley.

Starring Fred Williamson as the slave “Nigger Charley,” the story centers on Charley and his two cohorts seeking freedom in the old west in order to avoid being sold to another slave owner. It was directed by Martin Goldman and is a basic “shoot the bad guys” western.

The film was one of Paramount‘s highest grossing films in 1972 and spawned to sequels, The Soul of Nigger Charley and Boss Nigger.

As Tambay stated on the old S&A site, critics seemed to have given it lukewarm praise with Roger Ebert awarding two out of four stars. Ebert wrote…”The Legend of Nigger Charley is frustrating partly because of the high level of acting talent in the cast. When you see fine actors being thrown into exploitative scripts, you begin to get a little angry. If the current group of black-oriented movies has proven anything, it’s that there’s a large pool of skilled and interesting black actors in Hollywood. Whether it will forever be necessary for them to waste their talents in dumb screenplays is a question that must come to them sometimes late at night.”

Since Hollywood practically shuns originality, I wonder if a remake of this film–considering its financial success–would ever be considered? Add an A-list hunk (yes, Idris Elba) with an interesting love twist and maybe this could surpass Django Unchained…who knows!

I’ve embedded a clip below. You can watch the remainder clips on Youtube.