Yikes! This is one hell of a movie. What better plot for an exploitation film than the Slave trade? Sex, Violence, sadism, racism, rich vs poor, truth vs ideology. No wonder this thing is more than two hours long. and what a pair of hours they are. Every sordid element of the institution of slavery is on display: the brutality of the slave ship captains, churches preaching slavery as divine law, the chaos and depravity on display in the homes of the very rich who buy slaves as status symbols despite the obvious drawbacks: no incentive for labor to work efficently, caligula like indulgences of the males and female slaveowners, basically the total negation of morality and common sense. Truly a boonless institution was slavery and here is all the proof you will ever need and then some.
Not pictured in the film is it's fitting finale: not in an enlightened evolvement to more sensible and humane ways of business and culture, but a unconstitutional "civil war" where 600,000, virtually none of whom had anything to do with the slave trade, are slaughtered. It's amazing America survived.
