By Erin Free

FilmInk salutes the work of creatives who have never truly received the credit they deserve. In this installment: director Jerrold Freedman, who helmed Kansas City Bomber, Borderline, and Native Son.

In the course of the Unsung Auteurs column, several reoccurring reasons for the under celebration of talent deserving of greater praise have emerged, with two streams particularly prevalent: namely, a lot of work being done in the field of television (see the likes of Lamont Johnson, Karen Arthur, Tom Gries, Paul Wendkos and many more), and a multifaceted career in which screen writing or directing is overshadowed by another creative pursuit, as evidenced by the likes of Jack Cardiff, Paul Newman, Tony Bill and Anthony Harvey. Jerrold Freedman’s opportunities for greater and more appropriate appraisal are thus stymied double fold, as his career is marked by both. Now retired from filmmaking and better known as an author of contemporary crime and legal fiction writing under the name of J.F Freedman, Jerrold Freedman was previously a prolific director of episodic TV and telemovies, as well as three strong feature films. Rarely discussed these days for his directorial work, we felt it was time to redress the balance for the very talented Jerrold Freedman.

Born in 1941 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Jerrold Freedman began his creative career as a producer of episodic television in the late sixties on shows like Prescription: Murder, Istanbul Express and Trial Run, where he was one of the first in the field to employ the young Spielberg. Freedman eventually moved into directing in 1970 on The Bold Ones, The Psychiatrist and Night Gallery, which eventually led to his feature directorial debut in 1972 with the exceptional drama Kansas City Bomber, toplined by superstar Raquel Welch. Tough and gritty, it showcased Freedman as a director of incredible promise.

Jerrold Freedman

Cruelly maligned and under-appreciated as anything but a sex symbol, Raquel Welch’s most affecting performance can be found in Kansas City Bomber, which on the surface just looks like a cheap cash-in on the early 1970s craze of roller derbies (almost like rock’n’roll wrestling on roller skates), but which underneath is a much darker, more serious affair. Directed with no-frills terseness by Freedman, this surprisingly bleak drama stars Welch as K.C Carr, a single mother (nine-year-old Jodie Foster plays her daughter) and roller derby star who gets traded from Kansas to Portland, where she is immediately hit with a clenched fist of problems: her teammates take an instant dislike to her; the team owner (Kevin McCarthy) is an ambitious creep who wants to get into her pants; and she’s struggling to make ends meet.

The film is a grim take on the world of professional sport, with athletes treated like cattle, and then thrown away when they’re of no more use; this is most horribly shown in the debasement of Horrible Hank Hopkins (Norman Alden), an aging “bad guy” player and one of K.C’s only friends on the team, who is thrown on the scrap heap with particular heartlessness. The role of K.C Carr is perfect for Welch: she still gets to look sexy while toning down the glamour, and is able to pour her always intense physicality into the role. Welch is earthy, believable and highly moving (especially in a scene when her young son refuses to speak to her because of what she does for a living), and delivers without doubt her finest performance. Though now largely forgotten, Kansas City Bomber is a rough-cut little gem, and it should have sent Jerrold Freedman off on a fascinating big screen career.

Raquel Welch in Kansas City Bomber

Instead, the director spent the decade on the small screen, where he helmed a collection of particularly strong telemovies, including 1973’s Blood Sport (written by Freedman and starring Gary Busey as a deeply conflicted high school football player), 1974’s The Last Angry Man (with Pat Hingle as a crusading doctor), 1978’s Lawman Without A Gun (written by Freedman and featuring Lou Gossett Jr as a 1960s civil rights activist running for sheriff against a segregationist), and 1980’s famous issue-of-the-week conversation starter The Boy Who Drank Too Much (headlined by Happy Days’ Scott Baio as a teenage alcoholic). Freedman returned to the big screen in 1980 with the rock-solid drama thriller Borderline, a lesser but highly enjoyable entry for action man Charles Bronson, who acquits himself very well as a tough but thoughtful US Border Patrol officer butting heads with people smugglers. Highly involving, well characterised (Freedman co-writes) and effectively performed (Ed Harris features in his first major screen role alongside Bruno Kirby and Wilford Brimley), this curiously prescient little flick disappointingly failed to make much of an impact despite its many positives.

After Borderline, Freedman returned to the small screen, where he delivered more quality work, including 1982’s Victims (a rape revenge drama with Kate Nelligan), 1983’s Legs (a dance drama with Sheree North), 1984’s The Seduction Of Gina (in which Valerie Bertinelli gets addicted to gambling, and to the game of blackjack in particular), and 1986’s especially enjoyable Thompson’s Last Run, which pits Robert Mitchum’s hardened crim against Wilford Brimley’s veteran cop. Freedman also directed the pilot episode of the classic 1980s TV show MacGyver, but had such an unpleasant time that he took his name off the project and took the infamous billing of Alan J. Smithee. Freedman returned to the big screen for his third and final film with the excellent Native Son, a cogent, highly intelligent and deeply disturbing adaptation of Richard Wright’s novel. A powerful dissection of race, politics and personal responsibility in 1940s Chicago, the film follows a young black man who is employed as a chauffeur by a wealthy white family and accidentally kills the daughter, leading to an ugly cover-up. Grim and unapologetic, Native Son is another example of Freedman’s gifts when it comes to handling difficult material. Freedman also showed a real facility for casting and working with actors, with an incredible cast featuring the likes of Matt Dillon, Elizabeth McGovern, Oprah Winfrey, Geraldine Page, Ving Rhames, Carroll Baker and Victor Love.

Oprah Winfrey and Victor Love in Native Son

After more work in television, Freedman eventually left the director’s chair for good in the mid-1990s, choosing instead to concentrate full-time on writing fiction, which he’d already been doing on and off for some years. “Everyone seems to want to do two things in his life: direct movies and write a novel,” Freedman has said. “In 1987, I had been a successful film and television director and writer for fifteen years. I wrote and directed several feature films and TV pilots, including MacGyver and multiple episodes of The X-Files, and Kojak, to name a few, and I had even received Emmy nominations and Writer’s Guild of America television awards, but I wasn’t artistically satisfied, because of the compromises inherent in that business; only a handful of artists in film and television have creative autonomy.”

With highly successful books like Against The Wind (an absolutely cracking legal thriller which should have been adapted for the screen years ago), Key Witness, House Of Smoke, In My Dark Dreams, Above The Law and many more, Jerrold (now J.F) Freedman has certainly found the autonomy he craves…

If you liked this story, check out our features on other unsung auteurs William Dear, Anthony HarveyDouglas HickoxKaren ArthurLarry PeerceTony GoldwynBrian G. HuttonShelley DuvallRobert TowneDavid GilerWilliam D. WittliffTom DeSimoneUlu GrosbardDenis SandersDaryl DukeJack McCoyJames William GuercioJames GoldstoneDaniel NettheimGoran StolevskiJared & Jerusha HessWilliam RichertMichael JenkinsRobert M. YoungRobert ThomGraeme CliffordFrank HowsonOliver HermanusJennings LangMatthew SavilleSophie HydeJohn CurranJesse PeretzAnthony HayesStuart BlumbergStewart CopelandHarriet Frank Jr & Irving RavetchAngelo PizzoJohn & Joyce CorringtonRobert DillonIrene KampAlbert MaltzNancy DowdBarry Michael CooperGladys HillWalon GreenEleanor BergsteinWilliam W. NortonHelen ChildressBill LancasterLucinda CoxonErnest TidymanShauna CrossTroy Kennedy MartinKelly MarcelAlan SharpLeslie DixonJeremy PodeswaFerd & Beverly SebastianAnthony PageJulie GavrasTed PostSarah JacobsonAnton CorbijnGillian RobespierreBrandon CronenbergLaszlo NemesAyelat MenahemiIvan TorsAmanda King & Fabio CavadiniCathy HenkelColin HigginsPaul McGuiganRose BoschDan GilroyTanya WexlerClio BarnardRobert AldrichMaya ForbesSteven KastrissiosTalya LavieMichael RoweRebecca CremonaStephen HopkinsTony BillSarah GavronMartin DavidsonFran Rubel Kuzui, Elliot Silverstein, Liz GarbusVictor FlemingBarbara PeetersRobert BentonLynn SheltonTom GriesRanda HainesLeslie H. MartinsonNancy Kelly, Paul NewmanBrett HaleyLynne Ramsay, Vernon ZimmermanLisa CholodenkoRobert GreenwaldPhyllida LloydMilton KatselasKaryn KusamaSeijun SuzukiAlbert PyunCherie NowlanSteve BinderJack CardiffAnne Fletcher ,Bobcat GoldthwaitDonna DeitchFrank PiersonAnn TurnerJerry SchatzbergAntonia BirdJack SmightMarielle HellerJames GlickenhausEuzhan PalcyBill L. NortonLarysa KondrackiMel StuartNanette BursteinGeorge ArmitageMary LambertJames FoleyLewis John CarlinoDebra GranikTaylor SheridanLaurie CollyerJay RoachBarbara KoppleJohn D. HancockSara ColangeloMichael Lindsay-HoggJoyce ChopraMike NewellGina Prince-BythewoodJohn Lee HancockAllison AndersDaniel Petrie Sr.Katt SheaFrank PerryAmy Holden JonesStuart RosenbergPenelope SpheerisCharles B. PierceTamra DavisNorman TaurogJennifer LeePaul WendkosMarisa SilverJohn MackenzieIda LupinoJohn V. SotoMartha Coolidge, Peter HyamsTim Hunter, Stephanie RothmanBetty ThomasJohn FlynnLizzie BordenLionel JeffriesLexi AlexanderAlkinos TsilimidosStewart RaffillLamont JohnsonMaggie Greenwald and Tamara Jenkins.   

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