stevenfallonnyc "The Baron" really is quite the mess. This was included in a cheap package with a bunch of other "urban" films. Not a good movie by any means, but fun, and there are certain reasons to keep at it.The first of course is the great Calvin Lockhart, who just shines in pretty much anything he is in. He's a black filmmaker fighting "the man" to get a film made, but who has to get shady after turning down a deal that would have turned his movie(with Lockhart playing "The Baron," a devil-may-care wealthy adventurer) into a "white" movie. He gets involved with the mob and other shady characters.The leader of the mob, "Joey," is played by the great Richard Lynch, who is always perfect at playing scum. I've seen him on Galactica, Buck Rogers, and in "The Seven-Ups" and he's just fantastic. It was a very pleasant surprise that he was in this! And he is definitely a mean SOB. Lynch is so good at playing these roles that seeing him in 'real life' acting nicely must be a shock.Joan Blondell appears as the rich white woman who eventually supports pretty boy Calvin. And there are some other familiar 70's movie faces as well.The film really isn't that well made, but Lockhart, Lynch and the others make this a very good viewing. Some action and violence, but nothing crazy, and a very fast and convenient ending on the FDR drive (I think). Check this out for Calvin and Lynch especially.

johnc2141 the baron is one of those 1970's action movies that tried to cash in on the bigger hits like shaft and superfly.Calvin Lockhart plays a struggling actor/producer who has to deal with mobsters led by Richard Lynch trying to pass as an Italian gangster.anyway the plot is generic the main characters brother has a dept to settle with the mobsters so the baron has to do what he could to settle the score.the late great Joan Blondell plays a very wealthy woman who seduces Lockhart's character.sort of like American gigolo on the side.all for money of course.Richard Lynch who plays the heavy real good,cant remember him playing a good guy in a movie except for the delta fox where hes sort of an anti hero.there's a lot of action and violence and a brief car chase,all in all the baron is pretty entertaining in a b movie kind of way.7 out of 10.

Woodyanders Calivin Lockhart gives an excellent and affable performance as the Baron, an idealistic and impractical independent filmmaker who's struggling to get his first completed movie distributed. Calvin's a starry-eyed, woolly-headed dreamer with delusions of grandeur who gets a painful and jarring crash course in brutal, sordid reality when one of his financiers, a vulgar and flamboyant dope dealer called the Cokeman (a superbly cool and sweetly villainous turn by Charles MacGregor), demands that Calvin immediately cough up the $300 grand the Cokeman lent to him for his picture. The Cokeman desperately needs the dough to pay off a debt he owes to mean, racist, neurotic, homophobic and highly image conscious bon vivant loan shark Joey (veteran bad guy character actor Richard Lynch in peak scurvy form). Hard up for cash, Lockhart is forced to turn tricks as a gigolo, with his prize customers being wealthy elderly widow Joan Blondell and affluent, married young tease Caroline (the lovely Marlene Clark). Under Phillip Fenty's able, assured direction (Fenty also wrote the unusually thoughtful script and previously penned the screenplay for "Superfly"), this offbeat and interesting feature does an equally adept job as both a taut, gripping down and dirty crime flick and a trenchant, absorbing examination on the difference between dreams and reality, how far one is willing to go to make one's dreams come true, the desire to have control over your life, and the powerful need to be a success on your own terms. The catchy, funky, groovy soundtrack, uniformly top-notch acting (Lynch, decked out in flashy white suits and a snazzy top hat, especially shines as the eminently hateful and manipulative main bastard heavy), a sharply delineated contrast between the cold harshness of life on the streets and the lazy, decadent opulence of the high life, and the compelling, thematically rich narrative further enhance this film's overall sound quality. Although sometimes a bit slow and pretentious, "The Baron" still warrants praise as an ambitious, intriguing, uncommonly reflective and refreshingly unconventional existential thinking man's blaxploitation gangster sleeper.

Wizard-8 This one's a real surprise. First of all, the movie takes itself far more seriously than other black-themed movies of the period. That's not to say there aren't any laughs, though they do come from a few unintentionally funny moments. The other way the movie goes wrong is in the climax, which is unbelievably flat and short. Otherwise, the movie is surprisingly solid. The whole movie-making portion of the movie touch on the true difficulties of making independent movies. (The movie-within-the-movie looks intriguing, and I would have loved to have seen it done feature length!) The characters are an interesting bunch as well. The "hero" of the movie isn't completely likeable, and his quest to achieve his goal regardless of the fact those near to him get hurt makes him a real atypical lead. Though the biggest kudos goes to Richard Lynch, who gives one of the best performances in his career as the mobster who pursues our hero and the guy who gave him money. He's also in the two best scenes in the movie (the piano-playing bit, the subsequent restaurant scene) - two *fantastic* scenes. The movie is worth renting (if you can find it) for those two scenes alone.