Like many people with an impoverished, traumatic childhood, James Garner appeared to prize stability and consistency over variety of role, and his apparent lack of ambition (or ego) ultimately prevented him from making the leap from television household name to bona fide movie star. He was, to many people, a TV actor who kept delivering the same performance in everything he did. If you needed an affable, slightly venal, not-as-clever-as-he-thinks-he-is, yet basically honourable guy, Garner was your man. He played the part in countless lightweight comedies, and even in otherwise straightish movies like The Great Escape (1963) and The Americanization of Emily (1964), and both Bret Maverick and Jim Rockford share that same behind-the-eight-ball charm.
And yet, like his role model Henry Fonda1, there has always been a minor darkness to Garner’s performances, whether it be the occasional flash of vulnerability that manifests in comic roles or something altogether more malignant. He rarely played a full-tilt heavy, and didn’t relish the parts when he did have to play them - he was particularly hard on A Man Called Sledge (1970)2 - but some roles, such as Quincy in Skin Game, play on the possibility of a full heel turn, even if it doesn’t arrive.
On the face of it, Skin Game is a jolly little conman comedy. Quincy (Garner) and Jason (Lou Gossett) are a couple of grifters working the Antebellum South. Their con is simple: Quincy pretends to be a destitute slaveowner, Jason his last remaining slave. They mosey into small towns with weird names (like Dirty Shame and Bitter End), where Quincy kicks off an impromptu auction in the local saloon. Naturally, these slave-owning bastards are also cheap bastards who like a bargain, so Jason is inevitably sold, only to then escape and reunite with Quincy to split the take. The trouble is, some of these guys have a real good memory for faces, especially the runaway slave hunter Plunkett (Ed Asner), who manages to wangle a real sale and whisks Jason off to Texas. With fellow con artist Ginger (Susan Clark) in tow, Quincy sets out to rescue his old friend, but finds that Jason isn’t the only one who needs emancipation.
That’s right: this is a comedy about slavery. And it happens to be the most charming comedy about slavery you’re ever likely to see, if not the only one. Based on a story by the same name by veteran screenwriter Richard Alan Simmons3, Skin Game was largely the work of Peter Stone, a screenwriter who specialised in grumpy comedies like Father Goose (1964) and light-intrigue thrillers like Charade (1963) and Arabesque (1966) before going on to write one of the greatest films of all time. Stone was a writer in love with trickery and pseudonyms, and even adopted Pierre Marton (literally French for “Peter Stone”) for Skin Game, when rewrites left him apparently unable to claim it as his own.
And Skin Game feels like two movies in one. The first - and arguably more successful - is the irreverent conman comedy, where Quincy and Jason go from town to town, bilking racists out of their hard-exploited money and, later on, Quincy and Ginger search for Jason by pretending he’s patient zero for a particularly nasty form of leprosy. Garner and Gossett make a fine pair of scoundrels in the Mark Twain style, Garner as the opportunistic, quick-talking grifter and Gossett the New Jersey-born free man playing up the minstrel act for the smalltown bigots. Gossett was already a Broadway stalwart by this time, having played George Murchison in A Raisin in the Sun (1959), as well as carving out a career as a folk musician4, and he has a fine, wry sense of humour which plays nicely with Garner’s harried huckster persona. Even his "slave voice” is balanced by Gossett’s finely tuned performance - as with any good conman role, we’re seeing the mask and the man at the same time, though the man is invisible to the other characters. Gossett’s performance sets the tone for the movie during its comedic stretch - it’s never too broad or too knowing, walking a tightrope of irreverence without diminishing the very real danger, and it’s a shame that Gossett didn’t get more comic roles.
This is essentially a movie about two men, so naturally the female “love interests” suffer by comparison. Clark5 is also a fine foil to Garner, though she’s given little to play beyond a series of con artist turns, which she does with chameleonic aplomb. As with Gossett’s Jason, her true character only comes out in the quieter moments, and it’s to Clark’s credit that she manages to make Ginger both charming and comedic despite negligible characterisation in the script. Faring even worse is the astounding Brenda Sykes, an actress whose obvious talent and charisma was pretty much ignored by the industry outside of blaxploitation and television, and she’s given nothing to do in Skin Game but look pretty and serious.
Skin Game’s second movie is inevitably more serious. The film takes a sharpish turn once Jason is sold to Plunkett, venturing into more upsetting territory. While the sheer horror of slavery isn’t properly portrayed - for every savvy skin trader or brutal overseer, there are at least a couple of hay-brained marks - the weight of the subject matter tends to bear down on the film in a way that threatens to diminish it. It is too light a comedy to be ironic, and it never has enough rage or bite to make its point effectively - its closest cousin, Blazing Saddles (1974), might be broader, but it’s also more righteously bitter - so its moral message, despite what are clearly good intentions, lacks power beyond “slavery is a bad thing”. This is complicated further by the appearance of the “native slaves” Jason encounters in Texas, who suddenly make him their new chief. While there’s a certain irony in Jason’s complete ignorance of his fellow slaves - he’s a free man from New Jersey, after all - it nudges the movie into a more condescending than compassionate place.
Skin Game inadvertently gets tied up in its own premise, which isn’t to say that it isn’t funny (it is) and it isn’t powerful in its own way. Garner’s Quincy is a shade darker than his usual role, but only in the subtext - he’s the one that keeps Jason working the con, persuading him through misguided friendship to continually risk his life for a buck, and there’s a painfully long delay before his decision to mount a rescue attempt. Some of this is standard Garner-flavoured cowardice, but a reluctance to engage in fisticuffs is different to leaving your only friend to die on a plantation. This may be a case of overthinking the juxtaposition of Garner the comic actor and the serious subject matter, but I can’t help but feel this is a purposeful choice on Garner’s part, using his charm and vulnerability for less-than-salubrious ends.
Reviews for Skin Game were decent, with Gossett and Clark’s performances highlighted in particular, while Garner’s turn was gently disregarded as typically lightweight. It certainly made enough money to warrant a misguided leap to television in 1974 as Sidekicks, a pilot starring Gossett and Larry Hagman, but the premise didn’t catch on.6 It’s undoubtedly for the best - the chemistry of Skin Game barely works as it is; turning it into another network sitcom was asking for trouble.
Garner once described Skin Game as “a funny movie if you don’t mind jokes about slavery”, which feels unfairly dismissive. There are some ‘70s movies which would be impossible to make today, mostly because they’re inherently offensive; there are others that are so wedded to the charms of their cast that they would be impossible to replicate or improve upon. Skin Game is one of these, a genuinely amusing movie that doesn’t joke about slavery so much as it uses humour to diminish those who would joke about slavery. It may not speak to modern audiences, but it has good intentions and enough self-awareness to suggest that the white guys behind the camera might not be best placed to talk about one of the darkest moments in American cultural history. And that’s about the best we can hope for.
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Garner’s first professional role was a non-speaking part in a Broadway production of The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, starring Fonda. “I learned about technique, and I learned how to concentrate, but most of all, I learned how to be a professional.” And he even stole Fonda’s “seated two-step” from My Darling Clementine for Support Your Local Sheriff.
“I wish I could remember why I let Dino de Laurentiis talk me into this turkey.” (The Garner Files)
Simmons also wrote a late Columbo episode, “Murder, Smoke and Shadows”, otherwise known as “The One Where Fisher Stevens Plays A Homicidal Steven Spielberg”.
I’m ashamed to admit that I never knew of Gossett’s music. In my defence, his albums are apparently pretty difficult to get. And to make it up to you, here’s From Me to You from 1970.
Clark was also a solid, sympathetic Columbo murderer in “Lady in Waiting” in 1971. Hey, I’ll always bring it back to Columbo, folks. It’s my brand.
Neither did the other movie-inspired pilot Gossett starred in, Black Bart, the TV spin-off from Blazing Saddles.