Black Shampoo

Right before director Greydon Clark did "Satan's Cheerleaders", he made this 1976 violent blaxploitation cheese ball about a salon owner/gigolo, Mr. Johnathan (John Daniels, who looks like a smaller, african american Lou Ferrigno) getting revenge on the white mobsters who kidnap his secretary/girlfriend, beat up his gay hairdressers and trash his salon. This has plenty of cheezy acting, especially from the stereotypical gay hairdressers. The film is definitely not boring, except for some romantic 70s montages in the middle. There's plenty of sex, nudity, and violence resulting in a conclusion that involves chainsaw mutilations and a pool cue impaling! It shouldn't dramatically disappoint fans of the genre, but don't expect laughs like the Dolemite films. After you see it once, you probably won't come back to it. Its good for a cheap rental on bad 70s night. Black Shampoo goes mostly for a serious tone, although it has problems staying there. How serious can you take an angry hairdresser?

Man, I haven't seen this much nudity and so many stereotypes in a long time! Black, White, Rich, Gay, Straight--It has all of them.

Man,could the Gay hairdressers be more flaming? damn. And I have known a few gay hairdressers.

This has all the 70's clichés ever invented and portrayed in this sort of film, but Shaft, Superfly, Dolemite it ain't! LOL.

OK, it is NOT a great movie, It is a low budget cheese fest, yes.

But I really love seeing women in old movies who haven't been Botoxed, Implanted or Siliconed!You know what I'm sayin'? All natural hair, and...well you know.

The clothes are so funky, and it's hard to believe people dressed like that, but styles have a way of coming back around.

I grew up in those days. I was 12 when this movie came out, so I obviously didn't see it, plus I was nerdy, white and un-hip. (Still white and nerdy) LOL! So don't be so quick to over analyze and critique this film, it is what it is, and so are the other blaxploitation films of the 70's.

I love this kind of stuff, even if it is stupid, lame and dumb.

Damn, those women are fine.

Like 6 nude scenes in 30 minutes! Yee haw! I'm a typical guy, huh? Peace!

They just don't make 'em like this no more. Grungy as only a '70s B-Movie can be, and filled with hilariously overblown 'tude. The acting is minimal, the script is charmless and vulgar, and the lousy video version I saw made it look like a cheapo porn flick.

If you want to invite your friends over for a MST3K-type party, this would be a good one to rent. The opportunities to throw wisecracks at the screen are hard to resist!

I got a fair amount of entertainment out of this diverting if forgettable blaxploitation entry, but then I approached the whole thing looking at it as tongue in cheek. If one were to take it seriously, they might well find it in the "so bad it's good" category. A stiff, not too charming John Daniels is cast as Mr. Jonathan (whether that's his first or last name doesn't matter), owner / operator of a hair salon and also irresistible stud muffin to a variety of (mostly white) women. Trouble brews when Brenda (Tanya Boyd), his secretary, is threatened by her former employer, a mob boss named Mr. Wilson (Joseph Carlo). Wilson and his thugs mean business, and among their methods used are the trashing of the salon and the sodomizing of one of the employees. This dumb but fun movie comes complete with the expected funky music score with the ever present "wacka wacka" guitar, two flagrant gay stereotypes, and what will be the most appreciated by exploitation fans, an ample serving of female nudity. This certainly is a trashy outing, as the over sexed daughters of one customer unrelentingly come on to Mr. Jonathan, and it can be a very funny one as well. Just witness the awkwardly staged and ridiculous salon trashing episode. One has to see it to believe it. Hell, there's even a Western themed costume party in which one party goer is absurdly dressed in ballet gear. Things really pick up towards the end, where Mr. Jonathan is pursued by the sadistic mob flunkies armed with a miniature chainsaw. Now, we don't get to see too much detail when he carves them up, but this is an amusing bit of business nevertheless. In fact, the climax in general is pretty violent. With the level of exploitation on display, this should entertain some viewers, and it manages to generate some hearty laughs as well; the music score is at times utterly ridiculous. All in all, this probably won't become a classic or get too many retrospectives but it's a mild hoot for people with certain tastes. Seven out of 10.

Black Shampoo (1976)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Mr. Jonathan (John Daniels) has all the white ladies lined up at his barber shop. Not only is he great with their hair styles but he's also got a massive you-know-what and these rich white ladies want it. His secretary Brenda (Tanya Boyd) ends up capturing his heart but shes in deep with an evil mob boss (Joseph Carlo) and soon he's out for revenge.

BLACK SHAMPOO is an obvious take-off on the Warren Beatty film and I must say that this is rather entertaining from start to finish. Director Greydon Clark certainly keeps the film moving at a very nice pace and the screenplay has some terrific, offensive and at times dirty sleaze going on that helps make the film quite memorable.

I have to say that the highlight is the first twenty-minutes of the film when we see a number of white ladies lining up to get a piece of this black man. All of these scenes are done with the tongue planted firmly in the cheek but the scenes are quite funny and also very sleazy as there's no limit of totally nude women. Just check out the sequence where he makes a house-call only to get attacked by two young ladies and then their mom comes out to teach them how it's done!

The second half of the film loses some of the more dirty moments but we're still treated to some entertaining action. Of course, being a blaxploitation film there are a lot of stereotypes. This includes a couple gay barbers who are rather embarrassing in how over-the-top and zany their "gay act" is. WIth that said, the three leads are good enough for this type of film and they at least help keep you into what you're watching.

BLACK SHAMPOO certainly isn't a masterpiece but then again it really wasn't trying to win awards. The film was made on a low-budget and the director manages to make something memorable out of it. It's trashy but fun.