Skin Game (1971)

James Garner is Quincy Drew and Louis Gossett Jr. is Jason O’Rourke, partners in the con game.

And in pre-Civil War Missouri, they’ve stumbled upon their most profitable con yet.

Quincey plays the reluctant slave owner, forced to sell a faithful servant Jason, then stealing him back as soon as the sale is completed, only to do it all over again in the next town.

All goes fine until they reach Kansas, where Quincy meets and falls for a pretty pick-pocket named Ginger. She’s wise to what the two men are up to.

Then Jason falls for a slave girl named Naomi (Brenda Sykes) and convinces Quincy to buy her, only to have the sale interrupted when none other than John Brown and his men ride into town.

Jason and Naomi manage to slip away from him. But they wind up in the hands of a slave trader named Plunkett, then on a plantation owned by Howard Calloway.

That means Quincy and Ginger are going to have to come up with a new con in order to rescue them this time around.

James Garner as Quincy Drew, watching John Brown interrupt a slave sale in Skin Game (1971)

Louis Gossett Jr. as Jason O’Rourke, trying to talk his way to freedom in Skin Game (1971)

Review:

An odd film that mixes comedy with glimpses of the brutality of slavery.

Gossett’s character is whipped at one point. Naomi is fearful about being sold for the first time. And Plunkett chases down runaways even in free states, knowing several will die as he marches them back to their owners.

The film is at its best when Garner and Gossett are on screen together, the latter grousing about taking all the risks, the former forever hoping to extend the con.

The new con is a neat twist too: Quincy and Ginger travel from plantation to plantation with a story about a slave infected with leprosy, hoping they can isolate the individual before his owners come down with it too.

But for all the clever ideas, the film seems to veer wildly off course once Gossett’s character finds four strange slaves from Africa on the Calloway plantation and decides to use them to help plot his escape.

Susan Clark as Ginger, the female pick pocket Quincy falls for in Skin Game (1971)

Brenda Sykes as Naomi, the young slave girl Jason falls for in Skin Game (1971)

Directed by:
Paul Bogart
Gordon Douglas

Cast:
James Garner … Quincy Drew
Louis Gossett Jr. … Jason O’Rourke
Susan Clark … Ginger
Brenda Sykes .. Naomi
Edward Asner … Plunkett
Andrew Duggan … Howard Calloway
Henry Jones … Sam Cutler
Neva Patterson … Mrs. Claggart
Parley Baer … Mr. Claggart
Royal Dano … John Brown
Joel Fluellen … Abram
Dort Clark … Pennypacker
George Tyne … Bonner

Runtime: 102 min.

Andrew Duggan as Howard Calloway, ready to teach his slaves a lesson at gunpoint in Skin Game (1971)

Edward Asner as Plunkett, the tracker of runaway slaves in Skin Game (1971)

Memorable lines:

Jason O’Rourke, on the fluctuating price he brings, from $350 to $850: “I’m the same man every time. so it must be the way you’re making the pitch.”

Plunkett, after Quincy draws a gun on him: “I got a memory for faces, mister.”
Quincy: “So do I. I just hate to clutter up my mind with ’em.”

Quincy: “Well, I never said it was over, did I?”
Ginger: “Men never do. They just start acting rotten until the lady kind of figures it out for herself.”

Ginger: “Quincy, you mean you still don’t trust me?”
Quincy: “It’s not you I don’t trust, honey, it’s the money. It begins to act very strangely when it’s in your possession, particularly when it’s not yours.”

Louis Gossett Jr. as Jason O’Rourke, trying to end a con in Skin Game (1971)

Joel Fluellen as Abram, the house servant for the Calloway family in Skin Game (1971)

Royal Dano as John Brown, liberating slaves in Kansas in Skin Game (1971)

Susan Clark as Ginger, solidifying her partnership with Quincy in Skin Game (1971)

Brenda Sykes as Naomi, watching Quincy feel the sting of the whip in Skin Game (1971)

James Garner as Quincy Drew prepares to sell Jason (Louis Gossett Jr.) yet again in Skin Game (1971)