Speaking of Mandingo and ostensibly “shocking” inter-racial sex, it would have been mildly interesting if the Film Forum had decided to include Sidney Lumet‘s Last of the Mobile Hot-Shots (’70) in its currently runnng Lumet retrospective, which goes until 2.28.

I’ve only seen a portion of Hotshots, but it has a reputation of being extremely talky and dull. (The screenplay is by Gore Vidal, adapting a Tennessee Williams play called Seven Descents of Myrtle.) It has a suggested oral sex scene near the end in which Lynn Redgrave kneels before Robert Hooks, an African-American actor who’s worked almost exclusively on TV ever since. Mildly controversial for its time, but the movie mainly just blows a lot of florid air.
James Coburn plays Hook’s half-brother who marries Redgrave on a TV show and brings her back to his family’s run-down plantation, which is threatened by a rising river (and we know what that means!).