A/N: hello again, everybody! Here I am with my latest Gilligan's Island Fan Fiction submission. Here is hoping all was fine for all this past summer, all things considered. I was not ever planning on writing this one-let alone this soon. However, with the passing of noted filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles, I have decided to shake things up with my stories...not at all unlike how Mr. Melvin, himself, shook up the system way back in the day. Try as I might have to make things chronological, I have decided to This Is Us-ify my GI FanFics effective with this story. This chapter will introduce readers not as familiar with Mr. Melvin-something of a necessity, of sorts, given the unfamiliarty I found others to have of him and his work over the years. This type of introductory writing has been used, in many books and periodicals, to set up varaious stories I have read over the decades and thus, I have decided to go this way in starting off this story. I believe this setup will serve this entry well as the story unwinds. Besides dedicating this story to the late, great, Mr. Melvin Van Peebles, I also homage Miss Tara Burgudy for her ongoing support and encouragement in my writing-a part of me which has been reborn, in the process. I enjoy being here and I hope you are all enjoying reading my writings as much as I am writng them. to those who have read my stories here over the past six months, thank you for taking the time to do so. Enjoy...and thanks, Mr. Van Peebles, for everything! :D
Renassaince Man: a person who has wide interests and is expert in several areas.
By this definition, when thinking of a Renassaince man, one often thinks of the likes of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Leon Battista Alberti, Raphael, Donatello, Niccolo Machiavelli, Sandro Botiticelli, and Andrea del Verrocchio, just to name a famous few.
By this same definition, one could also apply this said definition to a Black man named, Melvin Van Peebles.
After all, 'tis a man someone with wide interests and expertise in multiple areas, as well.
Born in Chicago as the son of a tailor, Melvin Peebles had graduated from Ohio Weslyean Univeristy with a B.A. in Literature in 1954. Two weeks later, joined the Air Force, serving in the military for 3.5 years. He added the Van to this name whie living in Netherlands during the late-1950s/early-1960s.
At one point, he worked as a cable car gripman in San Francisco. He turned his working experieces there into a book, The Big Heart. Durng his time in the Bay area, it was suggested that he should become a filmmaker. He shot a few short films, and then went to Hollywood to try and find work. When no one would hire him, off he went to The Netherlands, with his young family, to study astronomy. On his way there, he had met witth Amos Vogel, who founded the avant-garde Cinema 16, who placed two of his shorts into his rental catalog. Upon favorable review of Mr. Melvin's films, thiey were then taken to Paris and were shown at the Cinematjeque Francaise. Mr. Melvin made it over to the Netherlands; however, his marriage fell apart, leading to his wife and children returning to the U.S. Melvin, meanwhile, was invited to Paris Cineantheque on the basis of his original films. There, he created a short film, called, Les Cinq Cent Balles in 1961, while developing as a writer in the process. Putting his writing skills to work, he was an investigaivtve reporter for France Observateur from 1963-4, where he profiled, and eventually befrinded, noted author Chester Himes. Himes, in turn, set him up with a job at the anti-authoritarian humor magaizine, Hara-kiri, where Mr. Melvin wrote a monthly column and later joined its editorial board.
In 1965-6, Mad magazine attempted a French version of their publication and hired Melvin as their editor-in-chief during its five-issue run. He also began writng plays in French, taking advantage of a form of songwriting called, sprechgesang, where the lyrics are spoken, rather than sung, over the music. This particular format would later serve him well in his 1968 debut LP, Brer Soul.
France was a very prolific place and time for Melvin. While there, he published four novels and a collection of short stories. A play he completed, La Fete a Harlem, was also released as a novel. Another novel he wrote would be made into what would be Melvin's first-ever full-length feature film, Story of a Three-Day Pass (La Permission) in 1968. This film won an award at the San Francisco International Film Festival as its French entry. The panelists were then taken aback when they learned that Melvin was not looking like the French auteur they mistook him as.
Nonetheless, Pass' success led to Melvin's first-ever Hollywood feature film, Watermelon Man, written by Herman Raucher and releaed by Columbia Pictures in 1970. Columbia was all for the idea and the premise presented, but preferred a Black director hem this film, hence Melvin's entry into this project. The movie starred Black comedian Godfrey Cambridge as a flippantly racist white man, who wakes up one morning and discvered he had turned into a Black man—having his entire life turned upside down, in the process. Mr. Godfrey used white-faced makeup until his character did his overnight transformation into a Black man, at which point Mr. Godfrey appeared as is without the special makeup. This was not an easy process for Melvin, who had clashed with Raucher over the direction of the film. Raucher wanted this movie to originally be a satire on liberal, white America; while Melvin wanted this to be a Black Power film. In the end, Raucher ended up novelizing the screenplay he wrote so that his version survived in some kind of form. Also, this way, Melvin could not invoke a cluase, in his contract, which would have allowed him to write the novel, instead. Melvin even had to fight to get the ending he preferred…and wanted….finding a way over what was originally asked for by Raucher, himself (in the end, Mevin found a way to make his vision work).
In any event, Watermelon Man went on to become a hit movie, earning $1.1M at the box office in the process. Melvin did not just stop there: he also went on to write the music to the movie, as well, to further lock down creative control. A song from the film, Love, That's America, was released as a single; it was a top pick single in Billboard Magazine's 1970 Halloween Issue. Love, That's America feaured the sprechgesang elements utilized by Melvin in his 1968 Brer Soul LP.
While Columbia offered Melvin a three-picture deal, he decided to go another way. Seeking complete total control over his next film, he set out to produce the Black Power movie he had so sought to make with Watermelon Man.
The name of this film would come to be known as Sweet Sweetback's Baaaaaddddaaaasssss Song.
Not long after the film's soundtrack LP was releaed, ahead of the movie itself, a man named William Gilligan would treat himself to a copy at a southern California Tower Records one evening, bringing this home to his wife, Mary Ann, and their two young children, son Jonas, and daughter Leilani. When the movie itself was released, recalling the soundtrack he had picked up a few months earlier, William had an unusal suggestion which everyone, believe it or not, would go along with for a special edition of Movie Night.