'The Hammer' is out on a new DVD

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When you call Fred "The Hammer" Williamson on his cell phone, if you're lucky, he won't answer. Because if he doesn't answer, you'll get to hear a phone message that is (a) kind of awe-inspiring, and (b) a reality check that reminds you of your status as a person who has not and never will be able to refer to himself, without irony, as "The Hammer.""Yo, this is The Hammer," Williamson growls, with an uber-cool seismic bass rumble that is part B-movie intimidation, part Barry White seduction. "Leave a message after the beep -- and that way we can avoid a beef."You don't want to have a beef with The Hammer, the action hero, "blaxploitation" icon and three-time pro football All-Star whose nickname comes from the trademark forearm blows he delivered, sledgehammer-style, to the heads of opposing receivers.A defensive back, Williamson played college football at Northwestern University and pro ball for eight seasons in the 1960s. He may be better known today, however, for his post-gridiron career as a fearless tough guy in dozens of movies, including many he wrote, directed and produced himself in a film career that has had few pauses since his feature debut as "Spearchucker" Jones in Robert Altman's "M*A*S*H."Among The Hammer's numerous actioners is "The Inglorious Bastards," a 1978 Italian World War II adventure that today makes its American DVD debut in a bonus-packed, Quentin Tarantino-approved three-disc "Explosive Edition" from Severin Films, a new label that specializes in European genre films from the 1970s and 80s."The Inglorious Bastards" also is available in a less elaborate single-disc edition. In addition to the movie, the three-disc set includes a CD of soundtrack music and a disc containing a feature-length documentary about the making of the film.Once a fairly obscure example of the "Macaroni Combat" film (a term coined to link the Italian war movie with the Spaghetti Western), "The Inglorious Bastards" has been elevated to a much in-demand cult title thanks to Tarantino, who has been preparing his own revamp of "Bastards" for at least five years and actively calling attention to director Enzo Castellari's original in the process. One of the DVD's bonus features is a 38-minute conversation between Tarantino and Castellari.In the movie, The Hammer takes a bullet. But he holds onto his daredevil leer, his trademark cigar and his life, even though the original script called for the character's death."That's part of the agreement that I have with myself," said Williamson, 70, after answering his cell phone at his home in Palm Springs, Calif.. (He also has a home in Chicago.)"I gave 'em three rules in Hollywood many years ago," The Hammer continued. "One, you cannot kill me. Two, I have to win all my fights in the movie. And three, I get the girl at the end of the movie, if I want her. So that's how I keep my image intact."And what is that image?"Tall, dark and handsome and tough, and stands up for what he believes in. When you go see a Fred Williamson movie, there is no singing, there is no dancing. It's all stand up and believe, and fight for what you believe in."Williamson said he remains prouder of his athletic achievements than of his film career. "Movie stars and athletes have a very hard time mixing," he said.Early in his acting career, the Gary, Indiana-born Williamson was perhaps most familiar as Diahann Carroll's boyfriend for a dozen episodes of the NBC sitcom "Julia." But the rugged, 6-foot-3 Super Bowl veteran soon found steadier employment in the so-called "blaxploitation" movies of the era. He alternately fought and fostered crime in "Hammer" (1972), "Black Caesar" (1973), "That Man Bolt" (1973), "Hell Up in Harlem" (1973), "Black Eye" (1974), "Tough Guys" (1974, with a Stax soundtrack by Isaac Hayes) and "Bucktown" (1975), among others.Buoyed by his success, both in America and internationally, Williamson began producing and directing more of his own low budget vehicles: "Mean Johnny Barrows," "Mr. Mean," "Death Journey." From 1976 to 1986, he averaged a film a year, many of which he made in Rome, where he relocated part-time after the positive experience of "The Inglorious Bastards." (In America, he says, he was a "black actor," but in Europe he was simply an "action star.") In an era in which there were even fewer black filmmakers than there are today, Williamson was a maverick and a pioneer. His contributions remain underappreciated, even though he's still active, as both a filmmaker and an actor."I started directing and producing because I wasn't allowed to present the kind of image that I wanted in the films and to the public," Williams said. "It was always, they want the black guy to die in the first five minutes of the movie and have the white guy revenge his death. So I said, okay, hell, I'll make my own movie and direct my own movie, and I know damn well I'm not gonna die."Reach John Beifuss at beifuss(at)commercialappeal.com. For more stories visit scrippsnews.com