Shanty Tramp

If you don't know what you're letting yourself in for, you probably shouldn't be watching this. Otherwise, it delivers all it promises in every respect. You may feel the need to bathe after this delightful trash and will have numerous lines to quote. Joyfully sleazy.

This film is so sleazy that you'll want to take a shower after watching it--and that's exactly what makes it so much fun. There's something here to offend and repulse everyone. It's the story of a southern white trash party girl looking for thrills, who lures a virtuous young black guy into destruction, along the way having some unforgettable sexual encounters with (a) a crooked tent-revival preacher, (b) a sadistic motorcycle gang leader, and (c) her own alcoholic father. Cheap production values and obvious first-timer acting only add to the sleazy atmosphere. Crack open a beer and enjoy!

Exploitative story of a day (mostly night) in the life of a shanty tramp, southern slang for prostitute. What does this movie have but every cliché you might imagine people think about when they use the phrase 'white trash'.

On this one hot summer night, there's prostitution, religious hypocrisy, misogyny, drunkenness, fistfights, bigotry, interracial sex, biker gangs, incest, lynching, moonshine, a car chase with explosive results, nudity, murder, and even an instance of walking out on the restaurant tab! There's more than can be listed.

All presented in stereotyped characterizations, but the lead female, Lee Holland, does an admirable job in her only film role ever, as does the fellow playing the lecherous preacher, a Paul Newman look-alike. Also nice is the fact that all scenery are actual locations, making for a realistic setting. Most likely someplace in Florida, as the accents are not too deep south, more typical for Florida, and the producer K Gordon Murray worked out of a facility in Coral Gables.

One of the more enjoyable exploitation trash films I've seen.

As a director Charles Laughton made only one film, "The Night of the Hunter" and it's one of the greatest films ever made. Just over 10 years later Jose G. Pietro directed his only film, "Shanty Tramp" and it's ... well, let's just say it's "Shanty Tramp", (the title really does say it all). It's a tale of sex, violence, race and religion but mostly sex and it will fit very nicely into any volume on trash movies. It is very cheaply made and very, very badly acted and yet you could say it was remarkably bold for its time. The hero is a young African-American, the villain, or at least one of them, a crooked preacher and it's 'heroine', the shanty tramp of its title and I loved every sordid, glorious minute of it. As a first feature it was hardly "Citizen Kane", (more like "Titties and Cane"), and as a piece of cheap exploitation it was hardly likely to bring Pietro to the attention of the major studios but neither is it negligible and it certainly deserves its cult status.

Shanty Tramp is often mentioned as one of the precursors to the exploitation tradition - and that would certainly seem to be true. While films like Psycho and Peeping Tom had already brought violence to the forefront, this film revels in pure SLEAZE - as while still comparatively tame compared to some later efforts, Shanty Tramp still contains a number of detestable characters including a drunken father, a sinful preacher and, of course, the central character - an insatiable young hussy who uses people for her own enjoyment. The plot focuses on said character as she sets out looking for adventure at other people's expense. She meets a man at a bar, but he ends up getting in a scrap with a black man and is shocked to find that she prefers him! After rounding up his mates, the men prepare for vengeance upon the black man; as does the girl's drunken father, who believes his daughter's lies that he raped her and gets 'every white man in town' looking for him. All this goes on while a shady preacher is busy shouting about the lord!

The film was obviously shot on a very limited budget as the whole thing looks very cheap. Shanty Tramp was shot in black and white, but it's not the fluid black and white picture that adorns many, bigger budgeted, films as this one looks like the filmmakers got a load of film stock on the cheap. The acting too is mostly terrible, and the dialogue is mostly trite; but all this is unlikely to put off the seasoned exploitation fan, who will no doubt be used to poor production values and non-talented performers. None of this stuff matters anyway, as the real focus of the film is on the shady characters and nasty situations that they find themselves in. The film doesn't feature much blood - and indeed, there is only one real shocking sequence in the entire film, but this is down to the time in which the film was made, and Shanty Tramp is still an excellent early taster of things to come. Overall, this might not be a great film in the classic sense - but I'm sure it had some influence on films that are classics, and it's well worth tracking down both for that reason and for the fact that it's a great deal of fun to watch!