No doubt there was someone besides Pirie who "got it right"--but who? Have you a candidate? Blurb statements are necessarily oversimplifications or they'd be useless. What they surely mean is he was the only prominent New York critic who did. The only person with a voice.

I think the film has kitsch aspects but probably people and critics misread it as something tacky when it was serious, due to its link with blaxploitation and the way in which it was marketed. There was moreover already a whole "Mandingo" pulp novel series (Mandingo, Son of Mandingo, etc.) that was extremely tacky, lurid, and without redeeming social value. (Or was it?) . The bursting bodices type of thing, but with big black bucks. Really, really junk. That is, judging a (paperback pulp) book by its cover: I didn't read them. So the confusion seems pretty easy to understand--if people didn't watch the movie or paid little attention to it when watching it. I can't comment further on the film. As I mentioned I only saw the trailer, though I saw that several times before Film Comments Selects presentations at Lincoln Center this February. I don't think we can assume that the critics met the film with "derision" because it made them uncomfortable. My guess is that they either didn't see it or didn't perceive it accurately at all. I don't agree with you that being made uncomfortable automatically arouses a response of derision. It can get other responses such as silence--an even better way to cover up.. This whole episode bears looking into but the details may be hard to come by. Kael may not have seen it. She may not have known about it. It sounds like one many avoided. I would have. I did. Or maybe Kael saw it and "got it wrong." It wouldn't be the only time. I think she got A Clockwork Orange wrong, very wrong.

P.s. Some guys did see it when they were fifteen. Here's one who did, and has a lot to say about it:

http://sergioleoneifr.blogspot.com/2...-mandingo.html

It’s my hope that one day Mandingo will take its place beside universally recognized, socially trenchant and provocative films as Deliverance, Dog Day Afternoon and, yes, even The Godfather as among the best the decade had to offer.
--Dennis Cozzalio of the blog, "Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule."