I will not call this by its main title, as I’m a white person and have no right to use it. Instead, I’m going to call it Boss or The Black Bounty Killer. And despite its incendiary title, it is a major movie in black film history, as Dana M. Reemes’ wrote in Directed by Jack Arnold: “Jack Arnold seems to have been artiste exécutant on this picture; content-wise, we must regard Fred Williamson as the film’s auteur. He is like a black Clint Eastwood in a Cottafavi western. William’s bounty hunter turns the tables on the town’s White establishment with an intelligent and biting wit. He is very popular in the nearby Mexican village and is generous to its inhabitants—a kind of cinematic third-world unity. From an ideological standpoint, it is interesting to note that the only White male who turns out to be worth much is the blacksmith, a simple, honest tradesman.”

Boss and Amos (Fred Williamson and D’Urville Martin) stop a stagecoach robbery and save Clara Mae (Carmen Hayworth). They then learn that several of the bodies in the aftermath have rewards for their capture, while one was due to become the sheriff of the town of San Miguel, as recommended by Jed Clayton (William Smith). Does Mayor Griffin (R. G. Armstrong) know that this man was a criminal?

They end up becoming the lawmen of this town and Boss even romances the white Miss Pruit (Barbara Leigh), which starts off on the wrong foot when she has fond memories of the slaves her father once owned. This may not be the best way to handle things. But by the end, Boss and Amos are defending the town from Jed, who has killed Clara Mae and kidnapped the Mexican boy, Poncho, who has become friends with them. Then, the mayor shoots Boss twice, who somehow is able to kill him with a knife. He tells Amos, “Don’t let me die in a white town,” before they leave. Does Boss survive? I’d like to think he does.

Jack Arnold did so much, like The Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Incredible Shrinking Man, The Mouse That Roared and The Space Children. He produced this with Williamson, who wrote the script. It’s way better than you’d expect, made at the height of the Black Power movement, yet it makes the hero the outsider who is fighting the sins of white America.