Black Heat

Black Heat is available under many titles, as are most films made by the late exploitation director Al Adamson. Also like many Adamson films, there are no major name stars, only a few washed up names and a few never-quite-made-it names. The story features a black cop in Vegas (Timothy Brown) out to nail bad guys. That's it. The plot is as thin as an average TV cop show from the same period. It's interesting to see Russ Tamblyn playing a really gritty, despicable character. It's hard to believe he's the same guy who played Riff back in the film version of "West Side Story". There's a couple of OK action scenes but the film is pretty tame by today's standards. At least it has a distinctive 70s feel to it. Brown is OK in the lead but didn't have much of a movie career.

It's another cheap programmer for Al Adamson as a couple of cops go after an international dope ring. With a post-Motown chick-a-boom soundtrack being run out of a hotel where the women guests are recruited for criminal activities, some of it is shot in Vegas for that gritty-but-luxurious feel that people felt appealed to the 1970s, and some in a pink-walled pool hall.

This seems to have been so discouraging that after appearing in it, Russ Tamblyn didn't show up in another movie for six years. He had been in some awful dreck over the years -- he has an Oscar nomination for PEYTON PLACE -- but some things discourage a man.

Black Heat (1976)

** (out of 4)

A tough black cop (Timothy Brown) from Las Vegas, with the help from his white partner (Geoffrey Land), tries to stop some criminals who are bringing heroin, weapons and other items into a local hotel. Director Al Adamson tackled just about every genre and he managed to make both decent and horrible films in each of them. BLACK HEAT might not be as much fun as something like Dracula VS. FRANKENSTEIN but for the most part it's probably the best made film I've seen from the director. Had the running time been edited down another ten-minutes you might even say this was a good film from Adamson and that there would have been quite rare. The storyline itself certainly isn't anything we haven't seen from other Blaxploitation pictures but for the most part the cast is fun and we're given a couple good villains to help keep everything moving. On a technical level it appears to a little more effort went into the picture including a higher production value and some nice cinematography. There's a car chase towards the start of the picture that might be the best sequence from the director's filmmography and this includes a terrific shot of the action from on top of a cliff. Brown isn't the greatest actor in the world but I think he's good on screen and manages to help keep the film entertaining. Russ Tamblyn plays a drug dealer named Ziggy and adds a lot of fun and especially during his introduction scene. The film eventually runs out of gas and it drags too much during the finale but overall this is a minor effort in the genre that fans of the director's should like. The most bizarre scene is when a woman offers to do a gang bang if she loses a card game. She does lose but then tries to back out when the men force themselves on her. I'm really not sure what Adamson was trying to go for during this scene but it's pretty bizarre with the type of score on it.

When a big-time drug dealer from Detroit by the name of "Guido" (J. C. Wells) comes to Las Vegas and gets involved with a local hoodlum known as "Ziggy" (Russ Tamblyn) a local detective named "Tony" (Geoffrey Land) and his partner "Kicks Carter" (Timothy Brown) become highly suspicious since Ziggy isn't in the same league as Guido and he doesn't deal in drugs. What neither Tony nor Kicks realize is that Guido needs about $100,000 in order to purchase weapons which he then intends to trade for high-quality drugs. Ziggy needs Guido's help to kidnap a courier carrying $250,000 from a security company. But in order to do that Ziggy needs information from a gambling addict by the name of "Terry" (Jana Bellan) who works at the security company. The problem is that Terry happens to be dating Tony and he doesn't want Ziggy anywhere near her. Now, rather than reveal what transpires next I will just say that I thought that for a blaxploitation movie produced in the mid-70's this particular film wasn't too bad. I especially liked the complex plot and some of the unexpected twists this movie presented. Slightly above average.

First off, anyone who gave THIS movie less than 6 stars really shouldn't be watching movies from this genre. "Black Heat" is one of the best films that the "Grindhouse" genre has to offer. Complete with wacky but fascinating characters, and a script so complex that it feels like three movies edited together to make one movie. There is the cop who wants bloody revenge after his partner is killed, there is the girlfriend who embarks on a self destruction trip after she loses her man, racking up a $15,000 gambling debt with some very bad people. You get the mob, running drugs and firearms from South America..so much is going on that there is not one second of film that drags. Not to mention the astounding, garish color palette featured here, from the blinding neon lights of the Las Vegas strip, to the pink nightclubs, and THOSE CLOTHES..."Black Heat" is truly an overload of the senses. The new bluray print is absolutely beautiful. Featuring edgy drama and intense violence; the scene where the debt collector crushes the guy's legs for not paying his bill was reminiscent of the scene from "The Gambler," when. Burt Young,in a similar role, trashes the guy's apartment and breaks his hand; truly gut wrenching stuff. I'm imagining the poor reviews were left by the kind of people who think "low budget" translates to "bad movie.." And people who think like that have no business watching movies like this, because this is TRUE "independent cinema," free from the Hollywood schmaltz that they have so much respect for..I'm sure if Quentin Tarantino's name was slapped onto this movie, it would suddenly be considered a masterpiece.. For those that "get it," I recommend "Black Fist," and "Massacre Mafia Style," as well as "The Hitter" starring Mr. Superfly himself, Ron O'Neal..all fine independent films, often overlooked, made with little money but with a lot of passion for the art of film making..