The story starts off with our anti-hero, Willie Dynamite (who was the bald Black guy on Sesame Street. You'll never look at Oscar the Grouch the same again) under seige from all sides, as he is set upon by an old flame-turned-social worker, the cops, and a wickedly funny pimp named "Bell" (played by Roger Robinson) who wants to take Willie's dynamite hoes because he won't join the newly formed pimp organized front. And my God, the outfits. Willie sports some of the most outlandish stuff you've ever seen, and when he walks down a set of courthouse stairs, prepare to be rewinding the tape a few times.
The best Blaxploitation and fictional pimp narrative I've ever seen. Of course, that's all terribly relative to the genre and time period. A "good" Blaxploitation film means it has a solid ENOUGH storyline and that the producers spent a little money on it to make it seem like an actual film. This one scores high on both counts, and you find yourself trying to figure out what could possibly happen next. And for a film made in 1973, it's surprisingly fresh. And my God, the outfits.Willie sports some of the most outlandish stuff you've ever seen, and when he walks down a set of courthouse stairs, prepare to be rewinding the tape a few times.
Raw, jagged, and explosively angry, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song is a landmark in American independent cinema. Melvin Van Peebles directed, wrote, produced, edited, scored, and stars as Sweetback, a passive bouncer raised in a brothel.
Shot guerrilla style on a starvation budget on the streets of Los Angeles, it's a violent tale of Sweetback's journey from passive acceptance to political awareness and active defiance. He becomes the target of a manhunt when he kills two cops who beat up a young black activist, and he bounces from hideout to hideout before running for the border, all the while getting more booty than Shaft and Superfly put together. The movie was so inflammatory by conservative industry standards that it was "Rated X by an All White Jury," which the ads proudly touted.
The unusual mix of agitprop and exploitation is directed in a jagged style that recalls Godard and set to a funky score performed by Earth, Wind & Fire, which Van Peebles intercuts with chanting Greek chorus-like slogans. Released independently, it was a huge hit and effectively spawned the blaxploitation genre, but none of the films that followed ever recaptured the energy, the anger, and the social politics of this breakthrough in independent cinema.
Rudy Ray Moore was, and is, a legend - he did more with less than anyone ever has in hollywood (except MAYBE for Ed Wood, jr) - and has left a legacy with ripples that will extend far, far into the future. He may not have 'invented' rap, but he sure advanced it, and probably did accidentally create the modern 'gangsta' persona, first with his stand-up and later thru 'Dolemite' : rhyming his lines, being the baddest mutha around (even though he was well north of 30 and not exactly in peak physical condition when the first movie was released.)
From the director of Friday Foster and J. D.'s Revenge comes a free-wheelin fast-dealin look at life in the ghettoChicago style. Filled with comedy, fantasy and a cast of unforgettable characters, The Monkey Hustle is a fast, funny and downright funky film that has it all and a little more! Everybody's got a scam goin on in this small Chicago hoodbut nobody's got it goin quite like Daddy Foxx (Yaphet Kotto).
He's so smooth, he teaches Flim-Flam 101how to score, scam, jimmy and jam and get over on anyone! But when a new expressway threatens to express its way through their turf, Foxx and all the other monkey hustlers have to band together or the only placeleft to do their deeds will be between six stripey lines on a blacktop!
The Monkey Hustle~ Yaphet Kotto, Kirk Calloway, Thomas Carter, and Donn C. Harper(DVD - 2004)
Shot on the streets of New York, writer-director Larry Cohen captures the bustle and color of the city in this violent, low-budget crime film. Ambitious Tommy Gibbs (a swaggering, self-confident Fred Williamson) has risen from shoeshine boy to Harlem crime lord, but he wants a bigger piece of the pot.
With a racist, high-ranking cop (Art Lund) in his pocket, he begins his expansion with a bloody takeover bid but finds himself betrayed from within and the target of both the cops and the mob. Cohen invests this fast-paced tale (partially inspired by the 1930 gangster classic Little Caesar with a touch of Scarface) with colorful characters (notably a hustling religious leader played by D'Urville Martin), high energy, and a scruffy style. Black Caesar is one of the most entertaining movies to come from the 1970s explosion of low-budget black cast genre pictures, more commonly known as "blaxploitation" films.
Tougher than Shaft and smoother than Superfly, this high-voltage sequel to Black Caesar explodes with enough action to incinerate New York City. Packed with machine-gun mayhem and riveting adventure, Hell up in Harlem is nothing less than a modern-day tribute to the classic 30s gangster film.
The Boss (former football star Fred Williamson), has "decided to hunt white folks for a change," becoming a bounty hunter and setting out on the trail of fugitive outlaw Jed Clyton (William Smith). With his comic sidekick Amos (D'Urville Martin), he rides into the town of San Miguel, finds that it has no sheriff and takes the job himself.
Boss takes a bite out of local crime and brings the hammer down on Clyton in this amusing and action-filled parody of the 1970s blaxploitation genre, as he institutes black man's law in this white man's town!
Boss~ Fred Williamson, D'Urville Martin, William Smith, and R. G. Armstrong (DVD - 2008)
Slicker than a Harlem shakedown, Across 110th Street "hits hard" (Cue) with a jacked-up, smacked-down thrill-ride through the hell-raisin' hoods of Harlem! Cooler-than-cool Anthony Quinn leads a hot cast, including Anthony Franciosa and Yaphet Kotto, in a "hair-raising" (Motion Picture Herald) cop thriller that packs a double barrel of "gory vengeance raw, ugly and unnervingly real" (Playboy)!
New York City police detective John Shaft (nephew of the original 1970s detective) goes on a personal mission to make sure the son of a real estate tycoon is brought to justice after a racially-motivated murder.
Shaft~ Samuel L. Jackson, Philip Bosco, Toni Collette, and Zach Grenier (DVD - 2000)
This is the story of 1970s African-American action legend Black Dynamite. The Man killed his brother, pumped heroin into local orphanages, and flooded the ghetto with adulterated malt liquor. Black Dynamite was the one hero willing to fight The Man all the way from the blood-soaked city streets to the hallowed halls of the Honky House..
Super Fly is a cocaine dealer who begins to realize that his life will soon end with either prison or his death. He decides to build an escape from the life by making his biggest deal yet, converting the coke to cash and running off to start a new life. The problem is that the Mob does not have a retirement plan and will give him a choice of staying and selling for them or dying if they find out his intentions
Duke Johnson visits a small Southern town, intent on burying his brother. After the funeral, he learns that he must stay for 60 days, for the estate to be processed. A few locals convince Duke to reopen his late brother's nightclub, and soon the local redneck policemen are intimidating Duke with threats of violence.
Goldie returns from five years at the state pen and winds up king of the pimping game. Trouble comes in the form of two corrupt white cops and a crime lord who wants him to return to the small time.