Donne in catene

Kudos to Pam Grier, the only woman with her own genre. Where else can you find a woman't prison, 3 race shower scene, Philippino gangsters, revolutionaries, and chase scenes reminiscent of the recent "Run." Not her best, but right up there, a definite recommendation for all you Pam Grier fans.

Dig it! You've got your black mama. You've got your white mama. You've got your lesbian prison guards. You've got your female prison shower scene. (That lasts about 5 minutes). You've got your tough Filipino gangsters. You've got your corrupt police man. You've got a Che Guevara like revolutionary leader. Put this together and what do you get? Pure cinematic goodness. This isn't a great movie. But hell, its a lot of fun. Pam Grier is great as usual as one of the mama's.(I'll let you guess which one.) Plenty of violence and nudity to spare. Don't go looking for this in the family section of your video store. Oh yeah, the story was written by Jonathan Demme. (Seriously!)

Hellcats/The Hot Box duo Viola and Demme next paired the winning combination of Pam Grier and Sid Haig in yet another prison film, Women In Chains/Black Mama White Mama. Blonde revolutionary Margaret Markov and sworn enemy Grier, who thinks Markov's revolution is "jive-ass", bust out of prison chained together in a 70s gender reversal of The Defiant Ones. They continue to bitch and scratch each other as they head across the countryside (at one point dressed as nuns!) to meet up with Markov's bandit buddies. Sid Haig is the comedy relief in a cowboy hat as the lead bandit, and in one scene has two naked women riding him like a horse. Haig continued to work with Pam in Coffy and Foxy Brown, and was much later cast by Tarantino in a fitting touch as the sympathetic judge across from Grier in Jackie Brown.

Prostitute Lee Daniels (Pam Grier) and revolutionary Karen Brent (Margaret Markov) are prisoners who don't get along. They are chained together on a transport to maximum security when Karen's friends try to free her. The two women manage to escape while the revolutionaries battle with the police. The women dress up as nuns and bicker with different plans. Captain Cruz wants them Dead or Alive and recruits gang leader Ruben (Sid Haig).

It's blaxploitation. It's sexploitation. It's a B-movie beyond a doubt. There are lots of boobs. The girls are bad mofos and one of them is Pam freaking Grier. Their uniforms are short. There are surprisingly funny moments like the dick measuring. It's not winning any awards although it's not trying to be that. It does what it intends to do. The title is ridiculous and perfectly memorable. All in all, it is better than it has any rights to be.

"Black Mama, White Mama" has something for everyone. Everyone, that is, who walks directly to the "Action/Adventure" section upon entering their local video store. First, it starts out in a woman's prison in some random South/Central American country. Second, the suggestions of lesbianism that this setting offers are set into hyper-warp by the chaining together of the two rivals for the lead, Pam Grier and Margaret Markov, while they wear nothing but skimpy prison tunics. They go on the run together while the film makes various unnecessary-yet-entertaining visits to all of those on their trail: Grier's former pimp, government agents after Markov, and, last but not least, Sid Haig's delightfully flamboyant "cowboy" character. This is a video that's not necessarily fun for ALL, but rather, a video that's fun for all who keep video stores in business.