Darktown Strutters

Black babe Trina Parks will always have a place in movie history - and in my heart - for her role as Thumper in one of the most memorable scenes of "Diamonds Are Forever", where she and Bambi team up against James Bond. Before seeing "Darktown Strutters", I was hoping for an action flick along the lines of "Cleopatra Jones", but this film is more of a (literally) dopey / surreal spoof, with bright colors, outrageous props and outfits, sped-up slapstick, out-of-nowhere musical numbers, and a loony sci-fi plot involving cloning. The main problems are two: 1) It's not funny enough, 2) The lunacy cannot sustain this movie even for just 81 minutes. Still, its audacity makes it worth a look, and the women that comprise the title gang are all beautiful. (**)

Like something out of a twisted 70s nightmare, DARKTOWN STRUTTERS is 100% entertainment for all the wrong reasons. I don't know if this movie is supposed to be taken seriously or is supposed to be a farce, but it certainly is unique in a way that no other blaxploitation film is.

Trina Parks (who is great, by the way) is Syreena, a black Queen biker who leads a gang of outrageously dressed black female bikers who at first race against, then become friends with a bumbling male biker gang, led by Roger E. Mosley! Syreena is trying to find her mother Cinderella, who has disappeared. Her kung-fu fighting brother has no information about her whereabouts and Syreena must turn to some pretty far out pimps and hookers to not only find Cinderella, but to expose a plot to clone black leaders by a racist Colonel Sanders-look alike who charges a fortune for mediocre rib dinners at his restaurants. Why clone black leaders? So they can be programmed to vote for white leaders! Sound like fun? It is!

The 70s fashions are out of this world, bumbling racist cops with a sonic siren harass the girls, The Dramatics sing "What You See Is What You Get" in a jail cell, the restaurant owner puts on a black-face minstrel show on a special stage in his dining room, a clone of "Colonel Sanders" comes out in diapers, amazing bike races and chases, and the final musical number while the credits roll is great! The musical score is great, making me wish a CD release was in the works (yeah right, like that will happen!). I really do love Trina Parks and her performance in this has made me anxious to track down her other films. No other notable performances, even though Dick Miller, the ultimate cult movie star, appears as one of the racist cops.

Highly recommended, DARKTOWN STRUTTERS is just a fun, kick-back kind of movie that needs not be taken seriously. Don't question anything in this movie, just watch, laugh, and you will guaranteed remember it for the rest of your life!

Nothing to really recommend about this unfunny attempt at a mid-'70s "blaxploitation" "musical" featuring a group of jive-talking' mamas on three-wheeled motorcycles who constantly tangle with a group of incompetent L.A. cops while simultaneously dealing with the threat of an evil Colonel Sanders-look-a-like who plans on creating a cloned race of...well, actually I was never really sure what he was trying to do. The boring plot is razor thin, the performances are sub-high school drama class and there's just not enough good music to make it worthwhile. The highlight of the film is a sequence with the Stax-signed vocal group The Dramatics performing their hit "Whatcha See is Whatcha Get" on a dungeon set(?). That was cool. The rest is barely worth a look. You have been warned.

Once upon a time, back in the mid-1980s, I had a boyfriend who didn't own a television set. Often we would lay awake late into the night, listening to the stereo simulcast of a local "all-night movie" channel (XETV, Ch. 6)beamed from Mexico into our snug, San Diego homes. Imagine our surprise and delight upon the discovery of "Get Down and Boogie," A.K.A. Darktown Strutters! If you think WATCHING this flick is a surreal,disorienting experience, just imagine trying to decipher the plot without the visuals!!! Every since that fateful night back in 1988, i've been trying to procure my own copy of this flick, to no avail. (I got an incredibly sparse n' sleazy one-sheet for it one year @ The Comic-Con: "Get Down and Boogie --This movie will fry your eggs!")

It seems to've lapsed into a "public domain" kinda thing, as the only 'official' release I can find is from East/West DVD,one of those 99-cent-store outfits, wholesale only. I do not own a credit card, which severely limits my options here... What's a blaxploitation-struck gal to do?

....March 2008 UPDATE: I FINALLY got myself a DVD copy o' this flick through Amazon.com!! Sure, it's just the $1-Store, edited for television version jacked up to $9 for a used copy, but it looks like this is the best/closest i'll ever get, and I am, for the moment, fulfilled!!! (Now if I could just get that copy of "Black Devil Doll From Hell"...

Looking for the weirdest blaxploitation movie ever? Look no further! This piece of cinematic insanity is incomprehensible and chock full of lame humour, yet it is just so out there that you cannot but admire its sheer audacity. Its story, such that it is, has a female motorcycle gang (dressed in the coolest biker gear I have ever seen) ride into town and encounter a never-ending conveyor belt of weirdos. There's no point in detailing the synopsis beyond this as I am not sure it really matters. There are some outrageous colourful sets, comedy relief racist cops(!?), a drug dealer in a white cowboy suit who pedals an ice cream cart with all his wares in it, a karate fanatic who busts moves ALL the time, a colour-co-ordinated KKK biker gang, soul groups who break into song at the drop of a fedora hat, pig men in capes, a minstrel performance(!?) and a human cloning device devised by a mad scientist. Its more an experience than anything else. Points awarded for sheer nerve.