Watermelon Man is a 1970 comedy-drama film directed by Melvin Van Peebles and based on the book The Night the Sun Came Out on Happy Hollow Lane by Herman Raucher. Written by Herman Raucher and distributed by Columbia Pictures, it tells the story of a typical 1960s, somewhat bigoted white insurance salesman named Jeff Gerber who wakes up one morning to find that he has become black.
Jeff Gerber (Godfrey Cambridge) lives in an average suburban neig...
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Watermelon Man is a 1970 comedy-drama film directed by Melvin Van Peebles and based on the book The Night the Sun Came Out on Happy Hollow Lane by Herman Raucher. Written by Herman Raucher and distributed by Columbia Pictures, it tells the story of a typical 1960s, somewhat bigoted white insurance salesman named Jeff Gerber who wakes up one morning to find that he has become black.
Jeff Gerber (Godfrey Cambridge) lives in an average suburban neighborhood with his seemingly liberal housewife Althea (Estelle Parsons), who tolerates her husband's character flaws out of love, and two children, Burton (Scott Garrett) and Janice (Erin Moran). Every morning when Jeff wakes up, he spends some time under a tanning machine, bats around a boxing ball, drinks a health drink, and races the bus to work on foot.
Jeff presents himself as happy-go-lucky and quite a joker, but he comes across as a bit obnoxious and boorish. Althea chastises Jeff for not having sympathy for the black people and she...
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