Darktown Strutters

Darktown Strutters (1975)

Runtime: Around 85 minutes

Directed by: William Witney

Starring: Trina Parks, Edna Richardson, Bettye Sweet, Shirley Washington, Roger E. Mosley

From: New World Pictures

Here's a quick review from me, of a rather unique blaxploitation film that was on TV last night. Onto the Letterboxd review:

This is a movie I've known about for a long while and even though I heard it described as “obnoxious” I still wanted to give it a chance so when it came on TCM Underground late last night I decided to give it a viewing.

Obnoxious doesn't even begin to describe it.

This in theory is a blaxploitation tale about a group of colorfully dressed women on motorcycles who are together as the mother of their leader is missing and they are all looking for her, but this is simply weird, having everything from a lot of dancing, blackface and the KKK to stereotypical characters straight out of the 1920's, dirtbikes, undercranked footage, all the audio and dialogue being done in post-production, and a Colonel Sanders spoof named Louisville Cross... and there are other things but I won't spoil the surprises.

I definitely am not automatically against films for being strange and nonsensical. Problem was, while I did laugh at some of the absurdity, at other times I thought this was rather painful, due to the lack of subtlety and the overarching unsavory tone. It's SO uneven. I understand those who love it... and those that hate it. Me, this seems to be the most accurate rating I can give it; maybe if I had ingested copious amounts of drugs beforehand... personally, if you want to watch a very strange and unique movie involving themes from the past, I'd rather watch Forbidden Zone, which is not only much stranger than this but that is what I'll do again in the future as I need to add a review for it here.

Anyhow, I'd say that Gene Corman wasn't his brother Roger, but it was Gene that produced The Big Red One, so I can't do that. I'd love to hear how everyone came up with such a strange take on the blaxploitation genre.

I need a little longer break so I won't be back until Wednesday night.