Freedom Road

Originally a four-hour tele-drama in the States, but mercifully trimmed to feature length here, Freedom Road marks a sad close to the career of the late expatriate Czech director, Kadár. Howard Fast's bulky novel is transposed with all the numbing insistence and impeccable stacked-deck liberalism of an old Stanley Kramer message-movie, with Muhammad Ali struggling to portray a quiet black Spartacus in the midst of the fight for post-Civil War emancipation. Flashbacks span 13 years' shallow history of 'the story so far', while former slave niggers and poor white trash together prepare for martyrdom in battle with the baby-burning Klan. The sentiments are fine; the sermonising's not.