Mahogany (1975)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Undescribable Perfection

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

"Tracy Chambers" (Diana Ross) lives in the south side of Chicago and works as a secretary at a large department store during the day and attends a fashion school at night in the hope of one day being a fashion designer. While commuting one day she meets a young man named "Brian Walker" (Billy Dee Williams) who dreams of empowering the impoverished people in the area to attain a life of dignity. Both of them soon become attracted to one another and Tracy agrees to help Brian in his run for local councilman. However, things change when Tracy meets a famous photographer named "Sean McAvoy" (Anthony Perkins) who entices her to Rome to become a fashion model which could greatly help her in her initial dream of becoming a fashion designer. Although she is somewhat sad about leaving Brian when he needs her the most, she places her ambition ahead of everything else and accepts Sean's offer. What she doesn't realize is the price she will eventually have to pay for her chance at success in that particular industry. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this film contained some decent drama here and there and Diana Ross performed in an adequate manner in the starring role. However, I honestly didn't feel any real chemistry between her character and that of Billy Dee Williams—or any of the other male characters for that matter. Likewise, I also thought that the ending was a bit too corny and predictable. That being said, while I don't consider this to be a great film by any means, I also didn't think it was necessarily that bad either and I have rated it accordingly. Average.

Easily one of the worst blaxploitation movies to come out in the 1970s. Diana Ross plays Tracy a poor black woman who hopes to become a famous fashion designer. She meets handsome Brian (Billy Dee Williams) a political activist. They fall in love (of course) but then she meets a famous fashion photographer named Sean (Anthony Perkins). He wisks her away to Rome to model fashions and she immediately becomes world famous (just like real life). She starts designing her own fashions but discovers success means nothing without having someone you love to share it with. It all leads to a ridiculously predictable finale.What's wrong with this movie? Except for the beautiful title song ("Do You Know Where You're Going To") everything! It's badly written with tons of stupid lines. The direction is just dreadful--scenes are badly shot AND edited! The fashions are hilariously ugly (but this was the 1970s so...). The acting is hopeless--Perkins just redoes his "Psycho" role again, Ross (who proved she could act) looks lost and Williams walks through his role. Just tune in for the opening credits (for the song) then turn it off. Predictable, stupid and largely forgotten. A 1 all the way.

Berry Gordy's love letter to Diana Ross is one of the funniest movies I have seen in a long time. Unfortunately, it's really not supposed to be a comedy. What little story there is is solely a lame excuse to stitch together montage after montage of Diana Ross images. In fact, I haven't seem this much unabashed admiration for a female lead since Streisand did "The Mirror Has Two Faces". Frankly, the only thing saving this flick from zero stars is Anthony Perkins's ultra-campy performance of the photographer who gives Ross her big break. While Perkins definitely was over the top, at least he was interesting. My wife says that this movie is for people who like fashion and design. But in my opinion, I say avoid this flick unless you have some sort of weird Diana Ross fetish.

"And now, Mahogany presents…the Kabuki Finale!" This is the movie that made me want to be a fashion designer *and* a drag queen. Who else would be able to sit through this tripe? But if you're a designer *or* a drag queen, or at least play one on TV, this is *delectable* tripe. Just like in *Mommie Dearest* when you *know* you're looking into the heart of Joan Crawford, *Mahogany* makes you feel as if you're looking into the heart of Diana Ross. A vanity production to beat *all* vanity productions, Mr. Gordy showcases his star (who was also his lover, *and*, we now know, mother of his child) in her first non-singing film -- her only other film being *Lady Sings The Blues*. In this self-serving tale of the perils of stardom, Diana, as Tracy Chambers, scales the heights of the glamour and glitter of international high fashion and plummets directly into Bad-Movie-Hall-Of-Fame. Tracy is in school to be a fashion designer, and we know this because we see her riding the bus around town sketching big drag queen-y outfits. But one humiliating interview follows another (Diana *excels* in demonstrating humiliation – lots of teeth-gnashing and tossing her head), and life looks grim. Even the local neighborhood activist (this *is* the Seventies), played by the devastatingly handsome, but not deeply talented Billy Dee Williams, holds no charms for her. He wants to make the world a *better* place, and *she* just wants to make it a *prettier* place. Just when things seem hopeless, her job in the display department of a local department store puts her in the line of vision of a famous, but unstable fashion photographer, played to extreme by Anthony Perkins. Perkins mistakes Ross for a fashion model, and is smitten by her beauty *and* her commercial possibilities. He assigns her the name of Mahogany (since he names *all* of his women after inanimate objects), and she skyrockets, amidst *much* of Miss Ross' signature teeth gnashing, to the very pinnacle of the high-fashion scene. Unsatisfied with such superficial glory, and intent on furthering her own design career, Tracy/Mahogany slips one of her own designs into a fashion show she's modeling in. It is a hysterical, yet painful moment as the crowd falls silent and Mahogany is left on the stage and complete embarrassment. But the day is saved by an older Italian gentleman who becomes her lover and mentor. He bankrolls a design house for her, of course, and she scores another major success. This leads to a particularly favorite scene where Ross is in her element – as the prima donna couturierre, she parades through her workroom, issuing demands and dictums, and eventually becomes entirely unglued, shrieking and cursing at her workers, who, not speaking English, have no idea what she's carrying on about. This scene seems to sum up Ross herself, as so many in this movie do, and she is utterly delightful – but *not* in a pleasant way. Of course, it's inevitable that Mahogany will chuck her entire career in the trash and go home to Mr. Right, having learned her lesson about the ugly business of beautiful clothes, and the viewer sighs a sigh of palpable relief that this movie, this monument to egotism, has finally come to an end. Writing credits go to John Byrum and Bob Merrill. I don't imagine that they put this movie on their resumes.