Big Time (1977)

          Noteworthy as the lone venture into film production and screenwriting for legendary Motown singer-songwriter William “Smokey” Robinson, Big Time is an amateurish but mostly pleasant blaxploitation comedy that benefits greatly from a funky soundtrack composed by, naturally, the estimable Mr. Robinson. The picture also has three appealing actors in leading roles. Christopher Joy gives an amusing turn as a low-rent hustler who gets into trouble by messing with the Mob’s money. Roger E. Mosley is entertaining as a crook with a pimptastic wardrobe, who may or may not be as tough as he seems. And leading lady Jayne Kennedy, playing an insurance investigator who goes undercover to entrap Joy’s character, is so breathtaking that it doesn’t matter if her performance is merely adequate—after all, the description “merely adequate” could just as easily apply to Big Time itself, so why not enjoy the sights and sounds that make Big Time bearable?

          Eddie Jones (Joy) is a con artist specializing in fake accidents (think neck braces and frivolous lawsuits). A string of bad decisions have left him in debt to J.J. (Mosely), who threatens violence if Eddie doesn’t make good. In a typical scene, J.J., who has his initials inscribed on vanity plates and on custom-made gold teeth, compels Eddie to leap from a moving car even though Eddie’s wearing only a towel. Desperate to pay his debts, Eddie enlists his buddy Harold (Tobar Mayo) for help running schemes. Eddie also woos Shana (Kennedy) following a meet-cute during an accident, though he’s too dim to recognize her hidden agenda. Eventually, Eddie stumbles onto a crime scene and steals a suitcase full of cash. This upsets mobsters, who are portrayed as a bunch of fat Italians sitting around a table covered with pizzas.

          Once the FBI enters the storyline, things get confusing fast, so during a good 30 minutes of Big Time, it’s difficult to track who’s doing what to whom and why. Also distracting: The way Shana’s partner delivers most of his lines in a bad Humphrey Bogart impersonation. Presumably influenced by the anarchic vibe of Sidney Poitier/Bill Cosby comedies from the mid-’70s, Big Time is blaxploitation without degradation, which counts for something. The language is gentle, the racial portrayals aren’t especially vulgar, the violence is tame, and Kennedy maintains her dignity by never wearing less than a bikini. So even though Big Time is dopey, it’s an amiable romp set to a slick Motown groove, and every third or fourth attempt at a joke nearly connects.

Big Time: FUNKY

Terminal Island (1973)

Squandering a kicky idea with bland execution, Terminal Island has the state of California dumping its convicted murderers onto a remote island to let the killers fend for themselves. (One imagines that John Carpenter must have encountered this movie before conceiving his own convicts-on-an-island opus, 1981’s Escape from New York.) As cowritten and directed by Stephanie Rothman, Terminal Island has moments of violent energy, but the characters are so underwritten and the general demeanor of the movie is so sleazy that it’s hard to care what happens. Among the many important things the picture lacks is a dynamic leading character, which means that secondary characters and villains command attention in a way that makes the story feel aimless and episodic. The movie begins with new convict Carmen (Ena Hartman) arriving on the prison island of San Bruno, 40 miles off the California coast. With male inmates vastly outnumbering females, the women are slaves ruled by cruel boss Bobby (Sean Kenney) and his right-hand man, Monk (Roger E. Mosley). After enduring physical and sexual abuse, Carmen and the women escape to join a rebel faction led by A.J. (Don Marshall). War for control over the island ensues. The plot works well enough in fits and starts, but Rothman stops the movie dead for leering topless scenes and nasty vignettes, such as the bit where a woman places honey on a man’s (offscreen) junk, then whacks a nearby tree to summon a swarm of bees. Ouch. Costar Phyllis Davis brings considerable sexual heat to the movie, and a young Tom Selleck gives a passable performance as a doctor convicted of murder on trumped-up charges. Given the potential of the premise, however, Terminal Island is nowhere near the drive-in delight it should be.

Terminal Island: LAME

Leadbelly (1976)

          Offering a simplistic overview of major events in the life of legendary blues/folk singer Huddie William Ledbetter, better known as “Lead Belly’ or “Leadbelly” because of his muscular build, the slick biopic Leadbelly dramatizes the cause-and-effect relationship between Ledbetter’s difficult life and the soulful quality that infused his performances. Born in 1888 Louisiana, Ledbetter grew up in the racially divided South, eventually spending many years on chain gangs and in state prisons because his temper caused trouble and his race ensured that mercy from government officials was in short supply.

          Completely eschewing Ledbetter’s post-prison life, during which he had a complicated relationship with success, the movie kicks off with a long sequence illustrating why Ledbetter left home. After achieving minor local fame as a musician, Ledbetter (Roger E. Mosley) gets into a brawl with a neighbor who lodges a police complaint, so Ledbetter’s long-suffering father, Wes (Paul Benjamin), tells his son to flee in order to avoid imprisonment. Absconding to a red-light district, Ledbetter becomes a kept man for a madam named Miss Eula (Madge Sinclair), who gives him his nickname while also teaching him musical lessons about the blues. Next, Ledbetter hits the road with fellow musician Blind Lemon Jefferson (Art Evans), but another fight lands Ledbetter in prison. He escapes and lives briefly under an alias, but then he’s recaptured and sent to prison at Angola, where he serves a long term for a murder charge stemming from the death of a man whom Ledbetter claims he killed in self-defense. The movie then fudges history by combining major events that actually occurred during two separate stints at two separate jails—Ledbetter charms a governor into issuing a pardon, and Ledbetter’s music is discovered by iconic folk-song archivist John Lomax (James Brodhead).

          As directed by photographer-turned-filmmaker Gordon Parks, Leadbelly is a notch more visually sophisticated than the average made-for-TV biopic of the same vintage, but in every other regard it’s quite ordinary. The script by Ernest Kinoy lacks depth, and only a handful of scenes involving supporting characters display real emotional power. In particular, a vignette of aging Wes visiting Angola and trying to buy Ledbetter’s freedom is a heartbreaker that says volumes about the black experience in the Jim Crow South.

          Having the vigorous Mosley play the title character at various ages is a problem, since slapping some gray into Mosley’s hair can’t mask Mosley’s youth, and the movie pushes Mosley’s talents way past their limits. He’s an appealing an expressive actor, and he does a fantastic job belting out Leadbetter’s tunes, but his range is far too limited for a role of this scope. In his defense, history seems to indicate that the real Ledbetter was often belligerent and self-destructive, so the choice to play the character as an underdog who overreacts to situations that challenge his manly identity is somewhat understandable. For all of its merits, however, Leadbelly leaves too much of the real Leadbetter story untold.

Leadbelly: FUNKY

Darktown Strutters (1975)

          Some generous viewers have characterized this overwrought satire of race relations as a spoof of the blaxploitation genre, but if there’s a successful joke buried anywhere in the picture, it escaped me. Designed like a live-action cartoon, complete with exaggerated body language, flamboyant costumes, oversized props, sped-up camerawork, and “wacky” sound effects, Darktown Strutters—which occasionally bears the alternate title Get Down and Boogie—is more of a recipe for headaches than a recipe for humor. The picture is too linear to work as a drug-era phantasmagoria, and too stupid to take seriously. Worse, writer George Armitage and director William Witney demonstrate horrible taste by trying to wring jokes from such grim subjects as police brutality, racism, and rape.

          While Armitage later evinced strong gifts for offbeat comedy (he wrote and directed the 1997 cult favorite Grosse Pointe Blank), this project very much represents the erratic early days of his career. In fact, there are many connections between the style of this picture and the excesses of Gas! –Or- It Became Necessary to Destroy the World in Order to Save It. (1970), a strange youth-culture sci-fi epic that Armitage wrote and Roger Corman directed. Corman’s brother, Gene, produced Darktown Strutters, while Roger’s company, New World Pictures, handled distribution chores.

          The plot of Darktown Strutters is fairly simplistic. Syreena (Trina Parks) is the leader of an all-female biker gang. When she learns that her mother has been kidnapped, Syreena teams up with an all-male gang led by Mellow (Roger E. Mosley). Eventually, Syreena discovers that her mother’s kidnapper is Commander Cross (Norman Bartold), the Colonel Sanders-like overlord of a barbecued-ribs empire. Meanwhile, Syreena has several run-ins with a trio of bumbling cops, puts pressure on black citizens who fear reprisals from Commander Cross, and rocks her way through several musical numbers.

          Even though every single element of Darktown Strutters is absurd, the costumes are among the most grating components of the film. Syreena and her fellow female bikers wear helmets tricked out with bedazzled feathers and wings. The dudes in Mellow’s gang dress like stereotypical Southern-fried fools, all floppy hats and overalls, except with rhinestones. One of Commander Cross’ outfits is a superhero-style costume comprising pink tights, silver-lame boots and undies, and a pig mask. Especially when actors wearing ridiculous clothes skitter across the screen with their arms and legs pumping to emulate “jive” movements, it’s embarrassing to watch the performers humiliate themselves.

          In terms of narrative, the movie drifts down so many blind alleys—goofy chase scenes, tiresome production numbers—that the story becomes hopelessly obscured. And then everything culminates with the revelation of bizarre nonsense about Commander Cross using a machine to generate offspring without the involvement of women—which somehow relates to why he kidnapped Syreena’s mother. Trust me, you won’t feel like making the effort to parse this crap, either. Darktown Strutters is not utterly devoid of charms, since leading lady Parks is beautiful and tough, costar Mosley is energetic, and the interesting actors Dick Miller and Stan Shaw appear in small roles. Additionally, some of the R&B tunes on the soundtrack are terrific. But, man, it’s all way too much—so the viewers most likely to groove on this singular experience are those who savor cinematic trainwrecks.

Darktown Strutters: FREAKY

The Jericho Mile (1979)

          Michael Mann didn’t just introduce himself to viewers with his first feature-length directing job. He dazzled them. Arresting, emotional, and smart from its first frame to its last, this made-for-TV drama delivers an unusual story with meticulous realism, showcasing Mann’s signature tropes of a hip visual style, deeply felt character work, and ingeniously integrated music. The picture also demonstrates why Mann is virtually peerless in his depiction of the criminal mind, because he doesn’t portray crooks as monsters—rather, he portrays them as self-aware professionals ruled by strict codes.

          Set inside a maximum-security prison, The Jericho Mile revolves around Larry Murphy (Peter Strauss), a lifer who obsessively runs “fast miles” every day in the prison courtyard. Isolated from all but a few fellow inmates, Larry lives inside himself; the exhilaration of athletic challenge give his existence meaning and structure. One afternoon, humanistic prison shrink Dr. Bill Janowski (Geoffrey Lewis) clocks Murphy and realizes how fast the man is moving, so he confers with Warden Earl Gulliver (Billy Green Bush). An innovative penologist, Gulliver realizes that nurturing Murphy’s talent might inspire other inmates to break the cycle of jailhouse profiteering and post-incarceration recidivism. Gulliver invites a nationally ranked running coach, Jerry Beloit (Ed Lauter), to observe and possibly train Murphy. After staging a race between Murphy and several professional runners, Beloit declares that Murphy has Olympic potential. Yet that’s only the surface of the story. Unfolding concurrent with Murphy’s surprising odyssey is a grim drama involving powerful inmate Dr. D (Brian Dennehy), who runs a jailhouse drug ring and gets into a hassle with Murphy, which inadvertently sparks a prison-wide racial conflict.

          Laced into all of this is a potent revelation of Murphy’s layers. We don’t learn about the nature of his original crime until we’ve already become invested in his journey, so Murphy emerges as a profoundly sympathetic character—we’re able to root for him with full awareness of what he’s done, and full awareness of his capacity for future violence. Presenting Murphy without apologies might, in fact, be the greatest accomplishment of this fine film, so it’s no surprise that Strauss took home an Emmy for his dimensional performance, or that Mann and co-writer Patrick J. Nolan shared an Emmy for the picture’s outstanding teleplay. Yet on many levels, The Jericho Mile is most impressive as a compendium of all the skills Mann had developed thus far as a writer-producer on episodic TV shows, and that he would continue to embellish in his extraordinary feature career. He uses editing and music to create vivacious rhythms; he shoots real locations and sets equally well to conjure an engrossing sense of place; and he guides actors toward naturalistic performances.

          Character players including Bush, Lauter, Lewis, and Roger E. Mosley do some of their career-best work here, imbuing their roles with lively individuality. Dennehy, still very early in his screen career, is animalistic and frightening, and Strauss achieves several moving moments by channeling a volatile combination of compassion and rage. (Strauss totally nails Mann’s trademark device of having criminals speak without contractions to avoid misunderstanding, so he seethes when delivering such lines as, “Man, I am into nothing! That is how I do my time!”) Plus, as he so often does, Mann pulls the whole movie together with an ingenious musical flourish, turning a Latin-ized version of the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil” into Murphy’s searing theme song.

The Jericho Mile: RIGHT ON

Sweet Jesus, Preacherman (1973)

Confusing, sloppy, and dull, the cheaply made blaxploitation flick Sweet Jesus, Preacherman has an interesting flourish here and there, but these grace notes are not sufficient to make the picture worthwhile. Roger E. Mosley (later to costar on the TV series Magnum P.I.) plays a hit man named Holmes, whose primary employer is a mobster named Martelli (William Smith). When Martelli starts losing control over a black ghetto, he hires Holmes to take the place of the local preacher as a means of infiltrating the community and rooting out crooks who are undermining Martelli’s operation. Seeing as how the movie introduces Holmes by showing him commit several flamboyant murders, like lighting a man on fire and tossing him off the balcony of a high building, the filmmakers don’t exactly make a persuasive case that Holmes is the right guy for a job requiring subtlety. Nonetheless, we’re told that Holmes grew up around Baptist preachers, so he knows how to talk the talk. As soon as Holmes assumes his position behind the pulpit, however, the movie wanders off into subplots about community activists, street-level dealers, and a state senator (Michael Pataki) whom Martelli wants to influence; as a result, Holmes gets lost in the narrative shuffle as supporting characters grab unnecessarily large chunks of screen time. Directed by one Henning Schellerup, Sweet Jesus, Preacherman is so disjointed that some scenes are cut up and dispersed throughout the movie, and so padded that unimportant montages, like that of a pimped-out dealer strutting down the street, drag on forever. The idea that Holmes can pull off his ruse never gains credibility, and a mid-movie plot twist involving Holmes’ sudden desire to seize control of the ghetto comes out of nowhere. Mosley is just okay, though he works up a decent head of steam during his first sermon as a fake preacher, and Smith’s exuberant over-acting is wasted because his character is a cipher.

Sweet Jesus, Preacherman: LAME

Stay Hungry (1976)

          First, the bad news: Bob Rafelson’s Stay Hungry is a hodgepodge of incompatible elements; the tone is completely out of control, ping-ponging between heavy drama and silly comedy; and Arnold Schwarzenegger gives one of the movie’s most nuanced performances. That said, Stay Hungry is so willfully weird that it merits examination, even if curious viewers aren’t necessarily rewarded with consistent entertainment.

          The strange story revolves around Craig Blake (Jeff Bridges), a wealthy young Southerner whose parents died in an accident, leaving him ownership of a small estate in his hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. The directionless Craig has gotten involved with a cartel of unscrupulous real-estate developers, and he’s been charged with persuading the owner of a local gym to sell his property. Instead of accomplishing his dubious goal, however, Craig becomes enmeshed in the dysfunctional culture of the gym, befriending drunken owner Thor Erickson (R.G. Armstrong), bonding with star bodybuilder Joe Santo (Schwarzenegger), and falling for Santo’s on-again/off-again girlfriend, Mary Tate (Sally Field).

          Once all of these characters are introduced, director/co-writer Rafelson wanders somewhat aimlessly through disassociated vignettes. Craig slums with working-class Mary Tate, enjoying carnal bliss at home but ignoring her in public. Craig goes on adventures with Joe, leading to the bizarre scene of humungous Austrian Schwarzenegger visiting a gaggle of backwoods buddies for fiddle practice. (Later in the movie, Schwarzenegger performs a full-on fiddle concert.) Also thrown into the mix is a convoluted subplot about a bodybuilding contest. Some of the bits in Stay Hungry are enjoyably odd, like the sequence of toupee-wearing Thor and his pure-as-driven-snow sidekick (Roger E. Mosley) entertaining a pair of hookers in the gym, but much of the movie is abrasive. For instance, Craig is a shallow son of a bitch, so it’s boring to watch him mistreat the amiable Mary Tate and display his “friend” Joe like a freak.

          The slapdash quality of the storyline is exacerbated by Rafelson’s tonal indecision, since he waffles between celebrating and satirizing his characters. The ending is especially sloppy, with various plot threads resolving against a backdrop of half-dressed bodybuilders parading through downtown Birmingham. (At one point, several of them ride atop a city bus, posing and preening in Speedos.) Though ultimately a blip in the careers for most of its participants, Stay Hungry was significant for Schwarzenegger, since it was his first dramatic role in a big-budget movie; combined with his appearance in the documentary Pumping Iron, released the following year, Stay Hungry demonstrated Schwarzenegger’s powerful charisma, setting the stage for his success as an action-movie star.

Stay Hungry: FUNKY

The Mack (1973)

          Few blaxploitation pictures have cast a longer shadow over African-American pop culture than The Mack, a violent thriller about the sex trade that’s imbued with a bracing amount of documentary realism. Set in the ghettos of Oakland, California, the picture follows the adventures of Goldie (Max Julien), a small-time crook who returns home to Oakland after a stretch in prison. Surveying his options for making a buck, he decides to become a pimp (or “mack,” in the movie’s authentic parlance), and his success in the flesh-peddling line makes him a target for competitors, corrupt cops, and mobsters.

          On paper, the picture sounds like a hundred other blaxploitation flicks, and, indeed, The Mack features the customary polyester clothing, R&B tunes, and street jargon. Beyond the rote action-movie plotting, however, is a sincere exploration of sociopolitical forces driving life in the roughest pockets of Oakland’s black community. The filmmakers enlisted several real pimps as technical advisors, which gives credibility to scenes of internecine power struggles.

          Adding another interesting dimension are pointed interactions between Goldie and his brother, black-power activist Olinga (Roger E. Mosley). “Bein’ rich and black means something,” Goldie says to Olinga at one point. “Bein’ poor and black don’t mean nothing.” The idea of success as a revolutionary act is provocative, and Olinga counters this argument with hard-hitting remarks about how the cycle of blacks exploiting blacks benefits the white power structure.

          This is heady stuff for a B-movie that also makes room for vicious scenes like the moment when Goldie locks a competitor in a car trunk along with a bagful of rats, but The Mack is consistently surprising. In addition to the race-relations material, the movie tries to explain the phenomenon of pimps controlling the minds of their “bitches” (get used to hearing that word, a lot, if you watch The Mack). In one vivid scene, Goldie gathers his streetwalkers in a planetarium and delivers a Jim Jones-style sermon about the rewards he’ll shower them with in exchange for unquestioning loyalty.

          The Mack isn’t made particularly well (most of the shots are grainy and underexposed), and Julien is a peculiar leading man, his onscreen persona so leisurely it’s hard to buy him as a lethal street warrior. Additionally, comedian Richard Pryor is underused in a supporting role as Goldie’s sidekick, though his sporadic torrents of vulgarity amp up the intensity level.

          Nonetheless, the resonant elements of the picture stack up. Willie Hutch contributes atmospheric music (including the suave ballad “I Choose You”); veteran character actor Don Gordon weaves all sorts of eccentric details into his performance as a bad cop who torments Goldie; and Mosley, later of Magnum P.I. fame, is believably anguished. More importantly, for fans of the blaxploitation genre, The Mack is filled with choice dialogue, like Goldie’s classic challenge to an enemy: “We can handle this like you got some class, or we can get into some gangsta shit.”

The Mack: GROOVY

Hit Man (1972)

          At first glance, the idea of a blaxploitation remake of Get Carter (1971) sounds great, since the grim Michael Caine picture has all sorts of elements that could transfer easily from working-class England to the American inner city: gangsters, pornographers, violence, and a badass antihero out for revenge. As written and directed by George Armitage, however, Hit Man lacks the single-minded malevolence of Get Carter. (Both pictures were adapted from Ted Lewis’ novel Jack’s Return Home.) Hit Man is a fun movie in sporadic bursts, mostly due to Armitage’s odd little character touches, and it’s watchable overall because of leading man Bernie Casey’s charisma, but the flick is not the slam-bang winner the combination of genre and story should have produced.

          The movie begins when Tyrone Tackett (Casey) arrives in LA for his brother’s funeral and starts asking questions about who whacked his sibling. During the meandering first hour of the movie, Tyrone spends about half his time digging for clues and the other half hanging out with his late brother’s pals and assorted women; it’s like the movie periodically forgets to have a plot as Armitage gets lost in rich blaxploitation textures. This aimless stretch has its distractions, though: Tyrone visits a nature preserve, makes time with groovy ladies, and tussles with bad dudes. All of this is punctuated with choice blaxploitation dialogue, like this heavy line: “Look, man, I don’t know nothin’ about nothin’, and that’s the righteous truth.” There’s also some weirdly amusing stuff involving Tyrone and his late brother’s business partner, likeable used-car salesman Sherwood (Sam Laws). The two share a bizarre drunk scene, with Casey raising his voice like he’s going through puberty; later, Sherwood blows a take of a TV commercial by innocently proclaiming, “And for you prestige motherfuckers, we got . . .”

          The movie gets more mojo in the second half, when vivacious costar Pam Grier becomes prominent and when the revenge story kicks into gear. The dialogue gets juicier, too: “They shot her in the fuckin’ head, but chicks like your bullshit bourgeois daughter can do anything they wanna do, ’cause you got the bread to make it cool, ain’t that right?” That’s the stuff! Casey’s performance is erratic, suggesting he and Armitage couldn’t decide whether to make Tyrone a wronged everyman or a killer waiting for an excuse to open fire, but Casey’s laid-back vibe offers a good counterpoint to the flamboyant narrative. Most of the supporting cast is forgettable, though Grier is as outrageously sexy as usual, Laws is a hoot, and future Magnum P.I. costar Roger E. Mosley is amusing as a hired gun. (Available at WarnerArchive.com)

Hit Man: FUNKY