On my recent New World kick (thanks to so much of it being on Prime), I went too far, and saw the savage self-parodying weirdness of Dante's and Arkush's Hollywood Boulevard, (not on Prime but I have an old copy) which though funny, also veered uncomfortably to the kind of parody where if you enjoy New World movies, this movie thinks you are an idiot. That they're shitty wastes of time thrown together to package breasts and blood. Well, I don't think that's necessarily fair, boys! Or it wasn't, until drive-ins died away and Jim Wynorski and Fred Olen Ray took over like those scuzzy looking runaways the mob guy brings over along with the video camera at the 1980 New Year's party in Boogie Nights. Those silicone breasts looked so fake that--even as a 14 year-old hormonal boy-- it was enough to make you wish they'd just put them away.
There's still sex and violence in the old drive-in era (70s) New World, but it's subtle, its folded in with wry wit and deadpan nonchalance, with crazy stunts, social urgency and yes, libsploitation.
If you doubt, here's seven films, all but two of them looking great in remastered HD prints streaming free on Prime. They're not Gone with the Wind, but they're better than a lot of major studio big budgeted balderdash out there, and most of all they don't take themselves too seriously nor too lightly. Funny yes, but not campy --that's the deadpan Corman way that makes them never get old. These films are (mostly) from the pre-Jaws / Star Wars era, the time when the drive-in was aimed at adults. They might be driving around in fur-covered vans, but they were still (relatively) mature. Kids today equate maturity with being boring and safe, which is the opposite of what it is. But they will understand the superiority of actual car crashes vs. CGI. when they hear the satisfying crunch of metal; and they will recognize that once upon a time a woman could be the aggressor in sex without it being a symptom of something; that sex wasn't always 'problematic,' and anyway it was just a movie; even it was problematic, it was fun and yes, maybe it was problematic.
1. THE BIG DOLL HOUSE
(1971) Dir. Jack Hill
*** / Amazon Image - A+
Naturally warden Dietrich (Christiane Schmitmer) won't like that, and if you step out of line in this seedy prison you wind up tortured for hours on end by her head guard Kathryn Loder while the mysterious figure in a black hood watches from behind some black netting. The new (male) doctor protests all the bruises on the patients but Dietrich dismisses the inmate's complaints as a lot of gossip and imagination. Who's the doctor going to report these abuses to? There's no choice but to revolt!
On thing I like about Doll House is that there aren't too much out-of-doors scenes, and no shrieking, overacting male warden or mincing gay guards. Doll House is filmed largely on cool sets (or at any rate indoors) with great lighting and camerawork. Even if you despise WIP genre, Big Doll House earns its freedom from condemnation. Calling it a WIP film is like calling Corman's Wild Angels (1966) a biker film. There was no such thing as a 'biker film' before Wild Angels. Everything that came after Corman's huge surprise hit was an imitation, i.e. part of the biker movie cycle, including--if you'll forgive me for saying so--Easy Rider. It's the same with Doll House, it's not following any markers. The girls are looking at classic Warner Bros. movies like Each Dawn I Die and 20,000 Years in Sing-Sing for their cues, and shrugging off their welts like Cagney or Bogart, see?
Highlight include the Collins 'seduction' of the vendor; with great pinkish lighting Collins' really sells it-- (below) and in general makes the best use of her full-throated, nearly Meyer-esque lines. I also like Mill's crazy dance around the cell after Grier gets her high; the long tracking shot following the girls as they leave the yard and go into the cane rushes so Grier and Collins can have their big mud fight; Woodall's tough performance under torture and later with machine guns in both arms. The girls are all lovingly filmed in their fully brushed long hair, their luxuriant limbs (it's the tropics so they're always in shorts) splayed around their cell; Loder is genuinely spooky as the torturer head of the guards, with just enough Nurse Ratchet surface warmth to chill the blood all the more when she takes off her cap and lets down her wild long hair (underlit with a green eerie horror movie glow).
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On the down side: Sid Haig delivers one of his worst ever southern accents. He's playing it way too jokey rather than following the deadpan approach of all his comely co-stars.
The new HD transfer on Prime makes the Philippines, finally, look livable. Color grading has been done with such loving care (take close notes of the rose hues in Collins' skin hues vs. the pink prison uniform above -poetry.)
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A big rollicking hit for New World, this stars Angie Dickinson stars as a good-hearted, sexually voracious backwater woman who takes her two nubile daughters into crime during the Depression, hooking up with various outlaw lovers and sexy hostages. The sisters are played by Switchblade Sisters' Robbie Lee and Candy Snatchers' Susan Sennett (she was buried alive in that film, made the year before this, so it's nice to see her up and breathing freely). Dick Miller (RIP you game OG hipster) is the increasingly frustrated FBI man in dogged pursuit. but this is still the era before interstate highways so it's not easy to catch up with Mama, especially when the girls hook up with machine gun-waving desperado Tom Skerritt, who falls for Angie, but winds up bedding both the sisters instead when gentlemanly sharpie William Shatner (with an unconvincing antebellum accent) joins up, and helps Angie move into high society, i.e crashing tony social events and robbing everyone at machine gun point.
A big hit, Corman followed this up with a slew of imitations, none of which measure up (with one exception, Lady in Red -below). Unlike Demme's dated Crazy Mama, this doesn't confuse 'rollicking' with goofy - there's no sped-up car chases with cartoon sound effects and ragtime music--something AIP for example relied on all too often. Here the characters may be having a blast but the movie never forgets they're playing for keeps --people die- in fact nearly everyone. The cars might be old Model-Ts, but that just means they flip over easier- they just don't explode as fast as the ones in the 70s. But it's still cool!
Good as that all sounds, what made this huge hit for New World was Angie Dickinson doing nude scenes --in an R-rated movie! Shhh! This was back when things like that were big news: Playboy used to offer celebrities a million dollars. Angie was neither a prude nor a fool; she worked for a percentage, smart enough to get rich on her assets, and everyone made out like interstate bandits. This was when girls could be sexy into their forties and all their body parts were real and therefore all the sexier. In fact her sex scenes here but most to shame. We totally get why both Shat and Skerritt would be gaga over her, and surly if she beds the other.
Most sex on TV and movies now is either rapey (HBO) or this kind of joyless 'smash cut rut' (my term for this habit of cutting from some innocuous greeting right to the middle of some joyless mutually demeaning rutting). But what made sex under Corman's watch so fun is its naturalism, there's goofy laughter and awkward jumping around. Lee and Sennett jump around on the bed and leap ontop of Skerritt like he's a big bean bag chair; they're innocents following their bliss without phony bourgeois limitations. I think a lot of patriarchal studio heads would be threatened by that. kind of uninhibited female enjoyment. there's no violence or tired soft focus close-up shots of random body parts - we always know who's in the bed, and who's sulking outside it. Not only are they tasteful they're important to the narrative. Sex is how Mama keeps both men under her spell, and these things have consequences, as when Robbie Lee gets pregnant the first time out losing her virginity.
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Grier rocketed to deserved exploitation stardom as the queen of blaxploitation films with this big cult hit-- capably stepping out from her ensemble work in the Philippine prisons and into the starring roles at AIP, which had then gone full blaxploitation (I thought this was New World which is why it made this list, but I wouldn't dare disrespect her by taking it out). Here she stars as a hardworking nurse out to avenge her smack-addicted 11-year-old sister by waging a one-woman war on LA's drug/prostitution racket. First she poses as a strung-out junky willing to do "anything" to get a fix (then blows the dealer away with a shotgun); she threatens to carve up the face of a strung-out call girl ( Carol Locatell: watch the subtle ways she comes slowly alive after taking some sniffs from her stash) finally setting up upscale pimp King George (Robert Doqui) for a great fall. Then shit gets pretty hairy, but she works it out and... well. In between all this, keeps her job as a nurse at the night shift of a downtown hospital.
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What makes Grier's performance here so indelible is the unique mixture of raw anger, sensitivity, cool, towering strength and the obvious emotional toll her double life is taking on her as she screws and shoots her way up the pusher food chain. Her towering strength always coming with back-end weariness, the kind that needs no man's aid, just maybe a cup of coffee or a Sunday drive. Her "why not?" when Carter tells her she can't just run around killing people, is priceless. It's clear Tarantino was trying to capture that mellow openness, the weary but kittenish honesty, during her early scenes with Robert Forster in Jackie Brown.
I know I've written on this before (see (see Jills of Jack Hill)) but then I was in bad shape, based on hallucinating in a kind of Christmas in AZ madness. Now, on Prime's excellent HD transfer (much nicer than the waxy Blue-ray from Olive), it looks totally different; it breathes and glows and you can feel the slight chill in the salty Pacific coast air. It's clear this is the best, by a mile, of all the Hill-Grier collaborations, and maybe the best blaxploitation film, maybe the best Hill film too. The writing and acting are superb in their innocuous subtlety: consider scenes like the post-coital vacation plan-making by Coffy and politician boyfriend (Booker Bradshaw) up at his swanky pad by the fireplace. Their discussion is filmed with her leaning back on him as they both stare into the fire, both are naked, comfortable around each other, the colors of the apartment and the flames of the fire all perfectly complimenting their black skin; they both look into the fire as they talk, in low real person voices - it's such a simple little scene. Hill Grier and Bradshaw have made a real moment that enchants in its simplicity. We all remember the catfight at King George's loft party but true fans also get a chill when recalling the disturbing laughter of Sid Haig as he drags King George around a junkyard tied to the back of his own car, and his warm regret --he wants her to know it's nothing personal--while driving her to her death. The men Coffy messes with may be bad in think they're 'in charge' they're all constantly in danger of losing themselves to desire for her; it gives her power over them. It's mind control. This kind of sex is practically foreplay compared to the demeaning rutting on TV these days and maybe in a way that's why Coffy is almost more adult. Maybe sex can be mutually rewarding even on an emotional level even between mortal enemies.
On the downside Pam's Jamaican accent is awful, mon.
The new HD transfer on Prime makes the Philippines, finally, look livable. Color grading has been done with such loving care (take close notes of the rose hues in Collins' skin hues vs. the pink prison uniform above -poetry.)
2. BIG BAD MAMA
(1973) Dir. Steve Carver
*** / Amazon Image - A-
A big rollicking hit for New World, this stars Angie Dickinson stars as a good-hearted, sexually voracious backwater woman who takes her two nubile daughters into crime during the Depression, hooking up with various outlaw lovers and sexy hostages. The sisters are played by Switchblade Sisters' Robbie Lee and Candy Snatchers' Susan Sennett (she was buried alive in that film, made the year before this, so it's nice to see her up and breathing freely). Dick Miller (RIP you game OG hipster) is the increasingly frustrated FBI man in dogged pursuit. but this is still the era before interstate highways so it's not easy to catch up with Mama, especially when the girls hook up with machine gun-waving desperado Tom Skerritt, who falls for Angie, but winds up bedding both the sisters instead when gentlemanly sharpie William Shatner (with an unconvincing antebellum accent) joins up, and helps Angie move into high society, i.e crashing tony social events and robbing everyone at machine gun point.
A big hit, Corman followed this up with a slew of imitations, none of which measure up (with one exception, Lady in Red -below). Unlike Demme's dated Crazy Mama, this doesn't confuse 'rollicking' with goofy - there's no sped-up car chases with cartoon sound effects and ragtime music--something AIP for example relied on all too often. Here the characters may be having a blast but the movie never forgets they're playing for keeps --people die- in fact nearly everyone. The cars might be old Model-Ts, but that just means they flip over easier- they just don't explode as fast as the ones in the 70s. But it's still cool!
Good as that all sounds, what made this huge hit for New World was Angie Dickinson doing nude scenes --in an R-rated movie! Shhh! This was back when things like that were big news: Playboy used to offer celebrities a million dollars. Angie was neither a prude nor a fool; she worked for a percentage, smart enough to get rich on her assets, and everyone made out like interstate bandits. This was when girls could be sexy into their forties and all their body parts were real and therefore all the sexier. In fact her sex scenes here but most to shame. We totally get why both Shat and Skerritt would be gaga over her, and surly if she beds the other.
Most sex on TV and movies now is either rapey (HBO) or this kind of joyless 'smash cut rut' (my term for this habit of cutting from some innocuous greeting right to the middle of some joyless mutually demeaning rutting). But what made sex under Corman's watch so fun is its naturalism, there's goofy laughter and awkward jumping around. Lee and Sennett jump around on the bed and leap ontop of Skerritt like he's a big bean bag chair; they're innocents following their bliss without phony bourgeois limitations. I think a lot of patriarchal studio heads would be threatened by that. kind of uninhibited female enjoyment. there's no violence or tired soft focus close-up shots of random body parts - we always know who's in the bed, and who's sulking outside it. Not only are they tasteful they're important to the narrative. Sex is how Mama keeps both men under her spell, and these things have consequences, as when Robbie Lee gets pregnant the first time out losing her virginity.
I'd never really heard of Steve Carver before watching this recently for this post, and then I noticed he also did the The Arena (below) and that Cannon-lover's fave Lone Wolf McQuade! In other words, he's the type of journeyman that somehow never stuck out for notice the way, say, Arthur Marks and John Flynn have recently during our post-Tarantino crime revivalist age. Shall his time too, not come? Ask anyone and they'll agree, Big Bad Mama is one of the quintessential New World pictures-- it has all its good parts and none of its bad, and the same goes for the lovely Amazon Streaming Image quality (the colors seem a little faded but it's possible it was intended that way to lend an old timey sepia tinge).
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On the downside, Shatner's southern gentleman accent is awful. And PS - Jim Wynorski's sequel BIG BAD MAMA 2 is also on Prime, albeit in full frame VHS dupe style, which is clearly all it deserves. Angie is in that one too, and--ever the trouper--she still gives it a good god-damn go, even though the care and love that went into the original is replaced by a kind of bachelor party costume theme tawdriness (the boys have that terrible mousse-sculpted hair of 80s porn stars). AVOID AVOID
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On the downside, Shatner's southern gentleman accent is awful. And PS - Jim Wynorski's sequel BIG BAD MAMA 2 is also on Prime, albeit in full frame VHS dupe style, which is clearly all it deserves. Angie is in that one too, and--ever the trouper--she still gives it a good god-damn go, even though the care and love that went into the original is replaced by a kind of bachelor party costume theme tawdriness (the boys have that terrible mousse-sculpted hair of 80s porn stars). AVOID AVOID
3. COFFY
(1973) - Dir Jack Hill
**** / Amazon Image - A+
**** / Amazon Image - A+
Grier rocketed to deserved exploitation stardom as the queen of blaxploitation films with this big cult hit-- capably stepping out from her ensemble work in the Philippine prisons and into the starring roles at AIP, which had then gone full blaxploitation (I thought this was New World which is why it made this list, but I wouldn't dare disrespect her by taking it out). Here she stars as a hardworking nurse out to avenge her smack-addicted 11-year-old sister by waging a one-woman war on LA's drug/prostitution racket. First she poses as a strung-out junky willing to do "anything" to get a fix (then blows the dealer away with a shotgun); she threatens to carve up the face of a strung-out call girl ( Carol Locatell: watch the subtle ways she comes slowly alive after taking some sniffs from her stash) finally setting up upscale pimp King George (Robert Doqui) for a great fall. Then shit gets pretty hairy, but she works it out and... well. In between all this, keeps her job as a nurse at the night shift of a downtown hospital.
What makes Grier's performance here so indelible is the unique mixture of raw anger, sensitivity, cool, towering strength and the obvious emotional toll her double life is taking on her as she screws and shoots her way up the pusher food chain. Her towering strength always coming with back-end weariness, the kind that needs no man's aid, just maybe a cup of coffee or a Sunday drive. Her "why not?" when Carter tells her she can't just run around killing people, is priceless. It's clear Tarantino was trying to capture that mellow openness, the weary but kittenish honesty, during her early scenes with Robert Forster in Jackie Brown. I know I've written on this before (see (see Jills of Jack Hill)) but then I was in bad shape, based on hallucinating in a kind of Christmas in AZ madness. Now, on Prime's excellent HD transfer (much nicer than the waxy Blue-ray from Olive), it looks totally different; it breathes and glows and you can feel the slight chill in the salty Pacific coast air. It's clear this is the best, by a mile, of all the Hill-Grier collaborations, and maybe the best blaxploitation film, maybe the best Hill film too. The writing and acting are superb in their innocuous subtlety: consider scenes like the post-coital vacation plan-making by Coffy and politician boyfriend (Booker Bradshaw) up at his swanky pad by the fireplace. Their discussion is filmed with her leaning back on him as they both stare into the fire, both are naked, comfortable around each other, the colors of the apartment and the flames of the fire all perfectly complimenting their black skin; they both look into the fire as they talk, in low real person voices - it's such a simple little scene. Hill Grier and Bradshaw have made a real moment that enchants in its simplicity. We all remember the catfight at King George's loft party but true fans also get a chill when recalling the disturbing laughter of Sid Haig as he drags King George around a junkyard tied to the back of his own car, and his warm regret --he wants her to know it's nothing personal--while driving her to her death. The men Coffy messes with may be bad in think they're 'in charge' they're all constantly in danger of losing themselves to desire for her; it gives her power over them. It's mind control. This kind of sex is practically foreplay compared to the demeaning rutting on TV these days and maybe in a way that's why Coffy is almost more adult. Maybe sex can be mutually rewarding even on an emotional level even between mortal enemies.
On the downside Pam's Jamaican accent is awful, mon.
4. THE ARENA
(1974) Dir. Steve Carver
**1/2 / Amazon Image - A+
I don't want to go into detail of plot but will tell you that their climactic catacomb escape is tense., violent (the ladies know how to fight)--as had been the style since back in the definitive classic The Big Doll House-- the final outcome is always questionable-- they could easily both die or get sent back. Besides, where does one go when the whole world is run by the bad guys? The answer may be nowhere, but at least the survivor is still free at the moment of 'The End.' It's fatalistic but maybe that's freedom.
Sure they may be slaves, but they're still eating well and no one goes to sleep sexually frustrated or forced to tame their wild 70s hair -- this ain't goddamned Handmaid's Tale. Romans may have been gluttons but they weren't prudes... for a few more centuries at least. The main reason I include it here though is that it looks so damned good. Prime's HD upgrade the blackness of those catacombs is so deep it's like the screen becomes 3D (at least on my groovy Sony Bravia, the best TV ever made!)
5. TNT JACKSON
(1974) Dir. Cirio H. Santiago
**1/2 / Amazon Image - A
Filipino auteur (somewhere between Ed Wood and Luigi Cozzi if that makes any sense), Cirio Santiago was a great find for Corman's New World: he could be both producer and director when needed and he knew the New World secret like only a handful of others: if you can't make it good, make it fast. That's certainly true here, and if you can get past the first few 'missed-by-a-mile but still pulled your punch' fights, this gets pretty slam-bang --and the quality of the image on Prime here is terrific. If you've tried to watch this on past VHS versions and given up after five minutes (guilty, your honor), you'll swear it's not even the same movie!
The story has American girl TNT (Jamie Bell) visiting seedy Manilla's drug section to find her fiancee (or brother? I forget). Within minutes of crossing into this bad area, Jackson gets into about 80 fights; Santiago makes up for weak camera choreography by having a lot of doors and windows break, Bell makes up what she lacks in actual karate skills with an endearing cuteness and a clear love of wild kung fu hand gestures. We know she's enjoying herself with these crazy hand movements because, frankly, she's not a good enough actor to hide it. Luckily she doesn't enjoy herself to the point she cracks an actual smile. She rarely departs from her one-note little frown, refusing all help or to even be cordial to the big drug kingpin of the neighborhood. There's also a mysterious white lady (Pat Anderson) who also seems to have an agenda concerning all the recently hijacked heroin shipments, it almost becomes her film as much as Jackson's. The real scene stealer though is Stan Shaw as the sartorially splendid kung fu savvy heavy who Jackson beds, bothers, and ultimately beats to a pulp. He is simply put, pretty terrific, refusing to believe Jackson will be trouble since she's such a fine sister in a place where there are almost no other black people. But why is she in Manila anyway, really?
WTF moments let us know that Enter the Dragon had come out the year before and was probably still in theaters. But Bruce Lee has nothing on Bell, who demonstrates what was by then a New World Santiago tradition, the topless kung fu fight; Jackson zips around her bedroom flipping off the light to run to and fro around her hotel hallway while changing clothes; a squad of goons pursues in and out of her bathroom and the hallway, ever-dwindling in number and fighting stamina as she slowly gets dressed. This tiny little lady jumping up on beds and pulling light switches as big goons clumsily chase her is a highlight of any New World trawl. As it does with Big Doll House, Amazon's recently upgraded streaming print makes the Philippines look far less clammy and claustrophobic than in its countless past editions. So if you've been waiting, now's the time. And what about that badass super intense final fade out? One in a million.
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I wanted to post some stills from this one which is damned crime it's not the HD anamorphic version Shout put out awhile ago, but the old full frame that Corman's own shitty DVD label put out years before that. But I love Sayle's episode-packed script and Pamela Sue Martin (I was a devotee as a kid back when she was Nancy Drew). Hence, I include this quartet of screenshots, to let you know the full extent of why the other titles on this list are so good. Sugar, everything used to look like that - all cropped and blurry. Lady in Red is good enough to see even in this version, maybe it will inspire you to get the Shout DVD, or petition the manager for better streaming. (full review)
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Produced for New World by Roger Corman's cool brother Gene, directed by old Republic serial journeyman William Witney and written by George Armitage (Gas-s-s-s,Miami Blues), here's a real find for the lovers of the weird. If you mesh something like Beach Blanket Bingo with Duck Soup and Shelly Duvall's Mother Goose's Rockin Rhymes, and a Bugs Bunny cartoon if Elmer was a cop, but then made it all uniquely and totally black fantabulous (ala The Wiz, then the rage on Broadway), you got this urban satire fairy tale set in what I think is supposed to Watts (actually Tennessee, according to imdb) or Louiville, or just of a surreal Monkees-meet-Parliament on Electric Company alterna-reality. The loose plot has Syreena (Trina Parks), member of a superhero-like gang of decked-out 'trikers', trying to find her abortionist mom, Cinderella, who has disappeared. A shady home of unwed mothers is involves; and wait, there's abductions of men going on too! Pursued along the way by KKK members on dirtbikes and inept cops with a giant siren on their car, Syreena encounters bizarre characters like the 'Pot-Sicle' man, who sells drug-infused ice cream (I really wanted the 50/50 LSD peyote bar, but couldn't get my money through the screen). There's a a big daddy-like detective who's feeling left out that he's not been abducted either. "Maybe it's like rape," Syreena says with a gyrating movement, "you have to ask for it," Weird lines fly by so fast and all while five other things are going on, you know this is from the Corman school of constant movement. And you love it.
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In the lead, Trina Parks as Syreena seems to be having a great time and it's mighty contagious. Not above disguising herself as a traffic cop in order to infiltrate the local precinct (and free all the brothers in the cell while the cops are chasing each other around in circles or blowing away one of their own who's dressed up in drag and blackface to catch a 'white female rapist who targets only black male queers') or as a nun to get a inside the evil Colonel Cross's southern-fried plantation mansion, she surfs the madness with a wry shrug and deadpan groove that sets a mighty fine tempo and mood. If she played it too straight it would be as much of a drag as if she did it too campy. She finds the exact right tenor and rides it all the way. The cast too jive on her energy and each other and the whole thing seems like a wild, fun party that, by the strength of her performance, never devolves into an incoherent fracas.
Of course one could think to oneself in today's enlightened times that hey, it's written by a white dude, produced by a white dude and directed by a white dude, how can it really lampoon racist tropes, including ribs, watermelon, police harassment, blackface minstrels, etc. like a variety show Monkees episode if done by a really high Richard Pryor (though Armitage notes Pryor crawled out of the test screening) without being racist itself? I don't know, but it was different times. Knowing how keen Armitage is for improvisation, I'm sure a lot of it came from the actors too. Good enough?
As you might guess, Tarantino is also a fan. I'd never heard of Stutters before last week (or if I did I got it confused with the song "Darktown Strutter's Ball," and then imagined boring ball documentaries) Dude, I was so wrong. It's because it''s such an off-the-cuff film it can't be placed in any genre. Here are some more, ALL NOT ON DVD. Consider this my line in the sand:
Luckily we can still find these gems on youtube albeit in worse quality even than the Prime print of Strutters. (There is a DVD-R Strutters version though I'm afraid the quality is the same - anyone seen it?).
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The story has American girl TNT (Jamie Bell) visiting seedy Manilla's drug section to find her fiancee (or brother? I forget). Within minutes of crossing into this bad area, Jackson gets into about 80 fights; Santiago makes up for weak camera choreography by having a lot of doors and windows break, Bell makes up what she lacks in actual karate skills with an endearing cuteness and a clear love of wild kung fu hand gestures. We know she's enjoying herself with these crazy hand movements because, frankly, she's not a good enough actor to hide it. Luckily she doesn't enjoy herself to the point she cracks an actual smile. She rarely departs from her one-note little frown, refusing all help or to even be cordial to the big drug kingpin of the neighborhood. There's also a mysterious white lady (Pat Anderson) who also seems to have an agenda concerning all the recently hijacked heroin shipments, it almost becomes her film as much as Jackson's. The real scene stealer though is Stan Shaw as the sartorially splendid kung fu savvy heavy who Jackson beds, bothers, and ultimately beats to a pulp. He is simply put, pretty terrific, refusing to believe Jackson will be trouble since she's such a fine sister in a place where there are almost no other black people. But why is she in Manila anyway, really?
WTF moments let us know that Enter the Dragon had come out the year before and was probably still in theaters. But Bruce Lee has nothing on Bell, who demonstrates what was by then a New World Santiago tradition, the topless kung fu fight; Jackson zips around her bedroom flipping off the light to run to and fro around her hotel hallway while changing clothes; a squad of goons pursues in and out of her bathroom and the hallway, ever-dwindling in number and fighting stamina as she slowly gets dressed. This tiny little lady jumping up on beds and pulling light switches as big goons clumsily chase her is a highlight of any New World trawl. As it does with Big Doll House, Amazon's recently upgraded streaming print makes the Philippines look far less clammy and claustrophobic than in its countless past editions. So if you've been waiting, now's the time. And what about that badass super intense final fade out? One in a million.
6. LADY IN RED
(1979) Dir. Lewis Teague
*** / Amazon Image - C
I wanted to post some stills from this one which is damned crime it's not the HD anamorphic version Shout put out awhile ago, but the old full frame that Corman's own shitty DVD label put out years before that. But I love Sayle's episode-packed script and Pamela Sue Martin (I was a devotee as a kid back when she was Nancy Drew). Hence, I include this quartet of screenshots, to let you know the full extent of why the other titles on this list are so good. Sugar, everything used to look like that - all cropped and blurry. Lady in Red is good enough to see even in this version, maybe it will inspire you to get the Shout DVD, or petition the manager for better streaming. (full review)
7. DARKTOWN STRUTTERS
(1975) Dir William Witney
*** / Amazon Image - C-
Produced for New World by Roger Corman's cool brother Gene, directed by old Republic serial journeyman William Witney and written by George Armitage (Gas-s-s-s,Miami Blues), here's a real find for the lovers of the weird. If you mesh something like Beach Blanket Bingo with Duck Soup and Shelly Duvall's Mother Goose's Rockin Rhymes, and a Bugs Bunny cartoon if Elmer was a cop, but then made it all uniquely and totally black fantabulous (ala The Wiz, then the rage on Broadway), you got this urban satire fairy tale set in what I think is supposed to Watts (actually Tennessee, according to imdb) or Louiville, or just of a surreal Monkees-meet-Parliament on Electric Company alterna-reality. The loose plot has Syreena (Trina Parks), member of a superhero-like gang of decked-out 'trikers', trying to find her abortionist mom, Cinderella, who has disappeared. A shady home of unwed mothers is involves; and wait, there's abductions of men going on too! Pursued along the way by KKK members on dirtbikes and inept cops with a giant siren on their car, Syreena encounters bizarre characters like the 'Pot-Sicle' man, who sells drug-infused ice cream (I really wanted the 50/50 LSD peyote bar, but couldn't get my money through the screen). There's a a big daddy-like detective who's feeling left out that he's not been abducted either. "Maybe it's like rape," Syreena says with a gyrating movement, "you have to ask for it," Weird lines fly by so fast and all while five other things are going on, you know this is from the Corman school of constant movement. And you love it.
Darktown's hipster madcap pace takes some attention - but lock onto its goofy kinetic off-the-cuff irreverence and its mix of music and danger and jet black social satire becomes sublime. A climactic dirt bike chase between Syreena and the Klan can rivet us but then we don't get irritated if Syreena stops her dungeon escape in order to groove with the soulful band the Dramatics; she doesn't even stop to let them out, just grooves in front of their cell in awed funky appreciation. This is not the kind of thing to get too hung about. Musicians are supplied by Stax Records, but we only learn two of their name in the credits. the Dramatics (who do their hit single "Whatcha See is Watcha Get" and a group singing sweet soul in the park, John Gary Williams and the Newcomers.)
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| Norman Bartold as Commander Cross, aka Sky Hog (any resemblance to a white devil purely...) |
Of course one could think to oneself in today's enlightened times that hey, it's written by a white dude, produced by a white dude and directed by a white dude, how can it really lampoon racist tropes, including ribs, watermelon, police harassment, blackface minstrels, etc. like a variety show Monkees episode if done by a really high Richard Pryor (though Armitage notes Pryor crawled out of the test screening) without being racist itself? I don't know, but it was different times. Knowing how keen Armitage is for improvisation, I'm sure a lot of it came from the actors too. Good enough?
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| Remember when everything looked this bad? |
As you might guess, Tarantino is also a fan. I'd never heard of Stutters before last week (or if I did I got it confused with the song "Darktown Strutter's Ball," and then imagined boring ball documentaries) Dude, I was so wrong. It's because it''s such an off-the-cuff film it can't be placed in any genre. Here are some more, ALL NOT ON DVD. Consider this my line in the sand:
OTHER GEMS OF OFF-THE CUFF DEADPANARCHY
Currently Suffering in No-DVD limbo!
Most of Darktown's crazier sisters and brothers--the ones that cross over any genre they want without losing their deadpan cool or getting too campy- aren't on even DVD. Is this because they're too weird for the powers that be to categorize? Something like the gonzo adventure of the 1984 Sandahl Bergman-starring She for example, is ostensibly based on the H Rider Haggard novel but throws in every trick in the book; then there's 1978's Get Crazy and Shelly Duvall's Mother Goose's Rockin' Rhymes (1990). None are available. What are they so scared of, Mary Joe? Rockin' Rhymes was a cable kids' movie. Surely it's safe for modern consumption? Luckily we can still find these gems on youtube albeit in worse quality even than the Prime print of Strutters. (There is a DVD-R Strutters version though I'm afraid the quality is the same - anyone seen it?).
(1982) Dir Avi Nesher
GET CRAZY
(1983) Dir. Allan Arkush
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| MOTHER GOOSE'S ROCK 'N' RHYMES (1990) Dir. Shelly Duvall ***1/2 RELEASE THEM AT ONCE!! |