Big Jim Bottoms (Spencer Williams) runs a sleazy nightclub, and
successfully so, until one day, the people of his town start to listen to
the new reverend Jasper, and before long, the nightclub loses patrons - to
the church. So Big Jim cooks up a scheme and sends three prostitutes to
the reverend and has his men shoot an incriminating picture of the girls
with the reverend (even if the background for this picture was totalyl
innocent). The good reverend realizes he has been had and wants to give up
and resign, but Caroline, the reverend's landlady, the aunt of his
fiancée and the adoptive mother of Big Jim (this woman is an awful lot
all at once) is not ready to give up that easily, so one day when Jim is
out, she sneaks into his room and steals the incriminating picture ... but
she is caught by Jim, the two fight, and eventually Jim accidently kills
her.
Everyone pretty much knows that Jim has killed his adoptive mother, but
Jim managed to make it look like an accident and gets away scott free ...
or so he thinks, because at a service for Caroline, reverend Jasper calls
upon Jim's conscience, and soon enough, Jim (thinks he) is haunted by the
devil, goes virtually out of his mind overcome by guilt, and ends up
stepping through the gates of hell.
A rather superficial and unsubtle morality play starring an all-black
cast and made by a black crew on a shoestring, Go Down, Death ! for
the most part has very little of interest to offer: The story is as thin
as it is boring, and the direction doesn't really try to make anything out
of it - but still the film is worth a look, even if it's only for the last
10 minutes or so, when Big Jim loses his touch with reality and is drawn
into hell - a surreal montage made up from some stock footage (presumably)
as well as shots of the gate of hell and the devil - complete with a live
human in his mouth. Just too bad the rest of the film couldn't be as good
as the finale ...
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