Duff Anderson (Ivan Dixon) has a dangerous habit of questioning authority and the status quo, especially for a black man living in the South. Earning a decent wage as a railroad hand he meets school teacher Josie (Abbe Lincoln) marries her against the wishes of her minister father and attempts to settle down. When he suggests organizing to fellow workers on his new job he's fired. He's then fired from a filling station job for rubbing some locals the wrong way. The marriage becomes rocky while a child back in Birmingham that he is not sure is his needs attention. He has a tenuous meeting with his old man (Julius Harris) and realizes he is turning into him.
Nothing but a Man is a powerfully sober telling of what it is to be a black man in Jim Crow South unwilling to commit philosophical suicide. A hard worker and easy to get along with Duff refuses to Tom and he ends up isolated between white supervisors and black co-workers. Fighting his own personal demons around parenthood he is a man battling on several fronts with several issues.
Suffering the indignities of second class citizenship, ignorance and out right racism as Duff, Ivan Dixon gives an outstandingly stoic portrayal of a man facing a world that seems entirely against him. As his patient suffering wife Abbe Lincoln pairs off well with Dixon, her sensitivity heartbreaking to witness. As Duff's dissipated father Julius Harris lends a supporting gem of a performance.
Eric Roemer's subdued direction adds to the impact of the storyline by foregoing the burning crosses and out of control mobs to instead concentrate on the everyday banality of bigotry, the cruelly cutting nature of forever being referred to as boy and other indignities.
Well edited and visually (Robert M Young) impressive it is a claustrophobic piece that works as both metaphor and at capturing the dead end squalor of Birmingham. Throughout Roemer maintains a realistic melancholy mood as well as a deceptive energy such as the track laying opening or listening to a Motown catalogue in a juke joint. It is a restrained work without a hint of the sensationalized conventionalism from around that era and more than likely the reason that it holds up better than a modest estimate of 90% of the films from back then, its witness to the era ideal viewing for those divorced from it.
Nothing but a Man is a powerfully sober telling of what it is to be a black man in Jim Crow South unwilling to commit philosophical suicide. A hard worker and easy to get along with Duff refuses to Tom and he ends up isolated between white supervisors and black co-workers. Fighting his own personal demons around parenthood he is a man battling on several fronts with several issues.
Suffering the indignities of second class citizenship, ignorance and out right racism as Duff, Ivan Dixon gives an outstandingly stoic portrayal of a man facing a world that seems entirely against him. As his patient suffering wife Abbe Lincoln pairs off well with Dixon, her sensitivity heartbreaking to witness. As Duff's dissipated father Julius Harris lends a supporting gem of a performance.
Eric Roemer's subdued direction adds to the impact of the storyline by foregoing the burning crosses and out of control mobs to instead concentrate on the everyday banality of bigotry, the cruelly cutting nature of forever being referred to as boy and other indignities.
Well edited and visually (Robert M Young) impressive it is a claustrophobic piece that works as both metaphor and at capturing the dead end squalor of Birmingham. Throughout Roemer maintains a realistic melancholy mood as well as a deceptive energy such as the track laying opening or listening to a Motown catalogue in a juke joint. It is a restrained work without a hint of the sensationalized conventionalism from around that era and more than likely the reason that it holds up better than a modest estimate of 90% of the films from back then, its witness to the era ideal viewing for those divorced from it.