The biopic Seberg tells the tragic story of film star Jean Seberg who – along with Marlon Brando and Jane Fonda – gave money and public support for the Black Panthers
Huey P Newton was rowing towards the Cuban coastline in a dinghy with only one oar when it capsized. The leader of the Black Panthers and his girlfriend, Gwen Fontaine, were on the final part of a journey that had been masterminded by the most important production team in the New
Hollywood era: Bert Schneider, Bob Rafelson and Steve Blauner (AKA BBS Productions). Five years earlier, the trio had upended the movie industry with Easy Rider. Now they were attempting to do to
American life what they had done to Hollywood: brazenly tear up the rulebook and redistribute power.
The producers had clandestinely shuttled Newton to
Mexico, then convinced a Colombian smuggler – known only as “the Pirate” – to take the black radical, who was on the run after being accused of
shooting a 17-year-old sex worker, into Cuban waters. But Newton and Fontaine struggled in the choppy sea, eventually scrambling ashore where they were picked up by the Cuban authorities. Drenched and anonymous to their would-be saviours, it wasn’t the hero’s welcome the Black Panthers leader anticipated. But it might have been BBS’s most audacious production.