Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, May 14, 1993                   TAG: 9305140184
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: STEVE MURRAY COX NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

WITHOUT HIS SIX-SHOOTER AND CHAPS, ACTOR-DIRECTOR

The camera clicks, the honking starts.

Recognizing this hip Adonis from "New Jack City" (he directed and played one of the cops), the handful of folks waiting for a bus dig into their pockets for something he can sign.

"Is the bus still coming?" one of them asks.

Yes, and so is the "Posse."

Opening today at Salem Valley 8 and Valley View Mall 6, director-star Van Peebles' trail mix of hip-hop and horses concerns a band of Wild West cowboys, all but one of them black.

Featuring Big Daddy Kane, Tone Loc, Blair Underwood, Tiny Lister, Stephen Baldwin and blaxploitation icons from the '70s (including Van Peebles' film-maker father Melvin), it's timed to round up box office bucks before the summer's big-budget flicks start their own stampede.

Van Peebles paints the "Posse" set as a Wild West training camp.

The actors learned to swing on ropes and jump on horses. Kane mastered some cool card tricks -- but not how to stay upright in a saddle.

"Homeboy fell off his horse twice, at a gallop," Van Peebles hoots. "Steve Baldwin was just laughing, because he's got the coolest black man in the world on the back of his horse -- and he can't ride."

"Posse" puts black cowboys back in the saddle in a bid to set the history books straight.

But not at the expense of date-night thrills. The new film takes a revisionist ride through a West where the white hats are black and the black hats are white. But here's the real color scheme: "Hollywood isn't so much about white or black," Van Peebles says, "it's green."

But the green his "New Jack" grossed for Warner Bros. (around $50 million) didn't guarantee a green light for his next film. When he tried to raise money for "Posse," Warner and other studios were only interested in funding a new "New Jack."

"The doctrine at the time was that a black period piece would not make money, and that folks who saw `Unforgiven' wouldn't want to see `Unfo'given,' " Van Peebles says with a laugh.

In his view, black film-makers are like musicians of the '40s and '50s, when "race music" was the catchall title for the diverse rhythms of R&B, blues and jazz. Hollywood and the media still make apple/orange comparisons based solely on a film-maker's race. Art-house pics ("Daughters of the Dust"), comedies ("Who's the Man"), mainstream biographies ("Malcolm X") and dramas ("Boyz N the Hood") all get lumped in the same category, though they have little in common.

"We're still considered `race films,' " Van Peebles says. "In Hollywood, they think me and Spike and the Hudlins [film-makers Reginald and Warrington Hudlin] are all one basketball team -- we get together and eat barbecue and plot our next movie."

When he couldn't get studio backing for "Posse," Van Peebles stuck to his guns and signed with Working Title, a funder of small art flicks. "I had to decide if I was going to chase an audience, or, hopefully, lead an audience," he says.

His new film led him back to the past in more ways than one. He's up against the box office odds he faced with "New Jack City" -- small budget ($8 million, about half of what a studio western would cost) and 850 theaters (in contrast to 2,000 for "Unforgiven's" opening weekend).

He says, "It's like someone saying, `Fight this out in the ring with the rest of these guys, but guess what: You have to fight with one hand.' "

So the filmmaker is using advice bequeathed him by his filmmaker father and "Posse" co-star Melvin Van Peebles ("Sweet Sweetback's Badasssss Song"): "Early to bed, early to rise, work like a dog, advertise."

A matinee idol for the '90s, Van Peebles is his own best advertisement. Save for the scuffed black dingo boots, there's not much wild or western on Van Peebles this cloudy day: black jeans, zippered jacket, "Posse" baseball cap.

Unlike his gruff, Clint Eastwood-inspired role as a man with a past in "Posse," Van Peebles in person is loose and easy, a cheerful mimic (" `Your ears are too big, you look like Dumbo,' " he trills in his sister's voice). Launching next into an affectionate, snap-queen rendition of one gay colleague (including said colleague's come-on line to Wesley Snipes), he grabs a reporter's tape recorder: "Turn that thing off!"

Click.