Personal Problems, dir. by Bill Gunn (USA, 1980)
By Russell Banfield Bill Gunn had little time for Hollywood. After achieving some success with the screenplay to The Landlord, dir. by Hal Ashby (USA, 1970), Gunn’s directorial debut, Stop (1970), so incensed Warner Brothers who claimed Gunn deviated far from his own script that the film was never released. His next film, Ganja and Hess (1973), fared slightly better, in that it was released, but was panned by critics to the extent that the film was taken away from Gunn and recut, retitled, and reissued. Gunn was so angry that he allegedly stormed into the producer’s office and trashed the place. From then on, Gunn was labeled…