One Score and 7 Years Ago

It looks bad for the “slave” named Jason. He is being pulled by a rope behind a horse ridden by his “master,” a well-dressed white gentleman named Quincy. It’s before the Civil War, and the pair are on their way to the backwoods town Dirty Shame, where Jason will be sold to the highest bidder. Jason pleads, “Please, Mars Quincy, please don’t do this,” but Quincy makes the transaction and rides away.

A few scenes later, however, Quincy and Jason are reunited, far from Dirty Shame, and they enjoy a good laugh as well as the $400 they made from the sale. The two men are really best friends and scam artists, working a successful scheme in which Jason is sold, then escapes with the help of Quincy. Jason is a free man from New Jersey.

The con forms the foundation of “Skin Game,” a comedy starring James Garner and Lou Gossett that earned glowing audience and critical response when it premiered in 1971. The film was the first major starring role for Gossett, who would go on to a distinguished acting career marked by his Emmy-winning role as Fiddler, a slave in “Roots,” and an Oscar-winning performance in “An Officer and a Gentleman.”

“Skin Game” was one of several well-received comedies made during the late 1960s and early ‘70s that were set during the slavery era. Others included 1968’s “The Scalphunters,” starring Burt Lancaster as a fur trapper and Ossie Davis as his educated slave, and “Buck and the Preacher” (1972), starring Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier.

But none of those films is known to a coalition of black leaders who have declared that slavery is off-limits for comedy. Their principal target is “The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer,” a new Civil War television sitcom about a black butler in the Lincoln White House. Los Angeles city officials are scheduled today to begin hearings on its airing.

The Human Relations Commission and the Days of Dialogue on Race Relations Project will screen at least one episode of the series, which is produced by Paramount and premiered Oct. 5 on the company’s UPN network, before various media watchdog groups at the Writers Guild of America West.

The Los Angeles City Council called for the hearing after Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas said he felt “Desmond Pfeiffer” would promote racial discord within the city, calling the show an “irresponsible” and “embarrassing” depiction of a period in history that blacks still find painful.

At a press conference Wednesday, Brotherhood Crusade President Danny Bakewell Sr., one of the most vocal of “Desmond Pfeiffer’s” critics, repeated his contention that the series is unacceptable because it uses comedy as a backdrop for slavery.

“No longer will we allow the bones of our ancestors to be desecrated,” Bakewell said. “We are dealing with horrific events here, and it is totally off-limits for comedy. This show violates our sensibilities and distorts our history.”

But veteran film and television director Paul Bogart, who directed “Skin Game” for Warner Bros., contended in an interview that his movie was an example of how the comedic treatment of slavery could be used to educate as well as entertain audiences.

“If you can’t take a part of history and turn it inside out, I don’t know what the point of doing comedy is,” said Bogart, 78, who is retired and resides in North Carolina. “At the time, we did hear from some people who felt that the Civil War was not funny, that it was a dangerous territory to get into. But it’s just a story about people and their reality.”

Bud Yorkin, another veteran producer-director who was one of the powers behind several groundbreaking shows of the 1970s, including “All in the Family” and “Sanford & Son,” cited the altered social climate as the reason comedies about certain subjects such as race relations and slavery are seen as more problematic today.

“It’s so much different now, and the public and times are a lot more conservative now than when we did ‘All in the Family,’ ” Yorkin said of the landmark comedy about a bigot. “CBS thought when ‘All in the Family’ came on that there would be a ton of complaints, and they hired a barrage of operators to handle all the calls, and armed guards to keep people out. Nothing happened. The operators fell asleep.”

In “Skin Game,” the partners split their take evenly, but it’s always clear that Jason is the one who has to take all the risks, which includes constantly humiliating and degrading himself in front of whites. And although Quincy treats Jason as an equal, he also is not unaware of the privileged position he has in society.

“To that extent, the movie isn’t funny,” Bogart said. “But it was real. We were presenting a man who had color problems in a world where everyone had color problems. But we also show that the white man was taking advantage of his position and skin color.”

Though the film has a predominantly light tone, there are scenes of slave auctions and of blacks in chains being sold. Jason is whipped by a buyer when he tries to convince the white man that he is educated and should be a free man (that whipping takes place off-camera). And when Quincy’s scam is discovered, he too is whipped just like a slave, bringing a stinging reality to his denial about what Jason has had to endure (that whipping is shown).

“Skin Game” also was adapted for television in a 1974 pilot starring Gossett, with Larry Hagman stepping in for Garner. The plot had the two con men trying to collect a $15,000 bounty on an outlaw. But the show never materialized.

Bakewell and other opponents of “Desmond Pfeiffer” said they were not aware of “Skin Game” or other comedies dealing with slavery. But he said that previous films on the subject did not make “Desmond Pfeiffer” more acceptable.

“The fact that something like this bothers us now is reflective of the maturity of a people,” Bakewell said. “At one time, ‘Amos ‘n’ Andy’ was acceptable too, until someone crossed the line. Nobody drew the line on those movies.”

Another protester, Pastor Ron Writer of the Emanuel AME Church in South Los Angeles, said, “It goes deeper than being politically correct. It’s because of the full awareness of the pain slavery caused.”

Today’s meeting of the Human Relations Commission will include a screening of “Desmond Pfeiffer” and a discussion among those in attendance, including representatives of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. (The American Civil Liberties Union declined an invitation to participate, saying the screening is indicative of censorship.)

UPN, which also has been invited to the meeting, has ordered the commission not to show the controversial pilot episode, which had sparked much of the criticism of the series, since it has not yet been broadcast.

An early version of the pilot contained a comical scene set in England in which the bodies of two men are shown after they have been hanged. Their heads are covered so it is impossible to tell the victims’ race. That scene and others were cut from the episode before it was sent out to critics for review, but in the wake of the protest from Bakewell’s coalition, UPN postponed airing it.

After the meeting, the commission will report back to the City Council on its findings within 10 days. What happens at that point is unclear, since the body has no authority to regulate what Paramount chooses to produce or put on its network.