The Candy Tangerine Man

Awesomely good little blaxploitation jewel features more stilted 70s fashion, gun violence, and pimp/whore sensationalism than possibly any other film in the subgenre.

Inner-city King-Pimp leads an exhausting double life...by day, he's your average, picket-fence suburban family man with a mild nature. Surrounded each night by beautiful hookers eager to "treat him right", he declines each shapely temptation and remains faithful to his wife(who is unaware of what his real "job" is). As reticent a character as this man may seem, his mean-streets edge comes shining through when necessary roughness is condign for maintaining order in the ghetto underbelly.

A plentitude of hard-ass action and snappy-crackling dialog make CANDY TANGERINE MAN one of blaxploitation's best...a technically on-the-ball production for a movie of its breed, but not at all lacking in glorious B-grade edginess.

Recommended 7.5/10

A FILM NOT TO BE MISSED! This is a bigger than bizarre (poor directing on a shoe-string) style of a movie. Totally and most wholeheartedly WELL WORTH WATCHING for all the wrong dum-ass reasons. Gangster hot heads and stiff pimping galore. Staring John Daniels as super-hero style pimp, 'THE BARRON.' A respected, well known family man by day and by night becomes a money making slap ma "HOSE" dood, with attitude. This film has it all. Jokes in all the wright places and jokes in all the wrong places. Classic ahead of its time, obscene language. Witty lines like, 'Mr B is gona run the 1-2-3....' or 'You xxxxxxxx xxxx xxxxxx xxxx xxxx you were gona xxxx xx xxx xxxx, I did it...' The movie concludes with a pure GUNSMOKE ending. THE BARON finally reveals he to has more moves than ever expected. (SEE POSTER)

John Daniels was one of the near-misses of blaxploitation cinema; the handsome amateur actor had the screen presence, yet his brief resume is clogged with C-minus material like "The Candy Tangerine Man". Hollywood pimp The Baron ushers his girls around the city streets at night in his candy-colored 1952 Bentley (complete with automatic shotguns underneath the parking lights). Business is tough, even for this ultra laid-back, casual guy: his "family" appears to continually hold out on him financially; one of his ladies is being harassed by blood-thirsty goons; and his competition (in league with Italian Mafiosos) is trying to have him rubbed out. The twist to the "plot" (given away in the lyrics to the opening song) is that The Baron is really a suburban husband and father to an unsuspecting wife and kids. Produced and directed by Matt Cimber, this disposable low-budgeter is actually better than expected, with full attention given to Daniels' performance (it's a non-performance, really, but Daniels holds the screen with such blithe nonchalance he stands out simply by underplaying). The actor, who would go on to star in "Black Shampoo" and produce the female R&B act the Love Machine, has the strong physique of a Fred Williamson and the low-key charm of a Richard Roundtree, but bigger-and-better offerings were not in the cards. This one is outrageous enough to garner some laughs, and Smoke delivers a groovy soundtrack, but all of the women (and most of the men) look used-up, giving the picture a crummy feel. *1/2 from ****

One of the more imaginative Blaxploitation films I've seen... This movie would make a good Windows theme, with dialogue where a "chalky, honkey" cue ball is blamed for the loss of a bet, and the CTM's car is a Rolls with painted-on flames and pop-up machine gun headlights (the scene where those are revealed is truly the high point of the whole movie). The whole "slum superhero" bit has been done before, but never quite as comically. If your video store doesn't at least have "The Mack" don't even bother looking for this one.

A favorite of both filmmaker Quentin Tarantino and his frequent cast member Samuel L. Jackson, "The Candy Tangerine Man" is simply primo exploitation. It stars the unfortunately little known John Daniels ("Black Shampoo") as "The Baron", a smooth as hell pimp who leads a double life. On weekends he goes home to a wife (Marilyn Joi) and kids in the suburbs! Trouble brews for The Baron when brutal mobsters insist on moving in on his territory. When his hookers take a powder, The Baron comes up with a new way to make money, but the bad guys just won't leave him alone, and he's obliged to indulge in a little old fashioned revenge.

Cult director Matt Cimber ("The Witch Who Came from the Sea") based the main character on a man he knew, who'd left school at a very early age but who was still quite savvy. This was a man who could have gone far in life had he stuck with his education. Cimber enlisted his friend, Mikel Angel (a writer and actor also known for such things as "Psychic Killer" and "Angels Die Hard") to write the script. Angel also plays the role of ruthless white mobster Vincent Di Nunzio, and served Cimber and the viewers with an amusing and fun scenario that's just full of all the sex and violence we could want.

And what glorious sex and violence it is. The sadism includes a pair of breasts being cut off (!) and a goon getting his hand mangled in a garburator. There's a respectable amount of lovely ladies here to show off the goods.

It's too bad Daniels isn't more popular. He had enough charisma and presence on screen to have been more of a star. He's ably supported by a couple of familiar faces for fans of 70s trash cinema: Ms. Joi, Richard Kennedy and George 'Buck' Flower as a pair of racist detectives who regularly hound The Baron (Kennedy really goes to town on the scenery), Tallie Cochrane as Midge, and Patrick Wright as volatile thug Big Floyd. John F. Goff appears unbilled.

The fashions and visuals are nice; the title comes from the fact that our hero pimp drives a brightly colored Rolls Royce. And there are hearty helpings of great soul music, composed by "Smoke".

This is one to seek out if you're not already aware of it.

Eight out of 10.