The video I saw of this film was on a label called Platinum Productions. It had been retitled as "Black Rage" and had this amazingly cruddy cover art with a white slaver threatening a black slave using what is very obviously a pruning saw (exactly like the one my grandmother uses on her shrubs). But don't judge a book by its cover. Even though the video quality of the tape was on the just adequate-to-fair side (I suspect that the tape was actually a bootleg), that didn't prevent me from ultimately really enjoying this film. It was clearly a labor of love, filmed (very clearly) on real Florida swamp locations (that must have been a real fun shoot), with mostly unknowns (Ted "Lurch" Cassidy is the only guy most people will probably recognize). But the subject matter is so unique (name me one other film set in 1859 about two slave brothers - one black the other albino - who find an old Spanish treasure map and spend the rest of the film on the run from bounty trackers through some of the roughest Florida swamp country this side of a women-in-prison movie) and the quality of the production values (great performances all around, terrific attention to period costuming and set decoration, attractive cinematography, even good sound recording) is so outstanding that this picture really won me over. It's too bad that Chris Robinson gave up directing (and producing, starring, writing...) his own material like this. I hope more people have a chance to see this distinctive, well-made film.
Review of Catch the Black Sunshine
