Darktown Strutters

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.

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.

Directed by William Witney and written by George Armitage, Darktown Strutters is quite simply, the forerunner to I'M GONNA GIT YOU SUCKA! It is slapstick comedy that was seen on a bigger budget in BLAZING SADDLES, but because of the storyline it was quite ahead of its time. The Darktown Strutters, a group of female bikers, come into Watts, where Syreena(fearless leader of the quartet) is looking for her mother. In the middle of it all, a racist, fast food magnate is plotting to manipulate the Black community for his own intentions. Highly stylized, and fast-paced, what makes Darktown Strutters so silly is its contemporary take on urban America and racism. Modern issues such as abortion, fast food chains, cloning, police brutality, and racism are interwoven quite effectively. The villain of the piece, one Colonel Louisville Cross, made his millions as owner of the Sky Hog fast food chain: where the pork ribs are bonesuckin' good! It is a very amusing spin on the benevolent image of the dearly departed Colonel Sanders(of KFC fame), who walked the earth when this film was released. It's also funny how they avoided copyright infringement by replacing fried chicken with pork: the other white meat. It's also funny to see Syreena's contempt for the Colonel the minute she sees him. It's easy to see why the movie is overlooked. During that period, I really don't think Black Americans were in the mood for such comedies, especially when the Blaxploitation era was full of hardcore action flicks. I think too many viewers on the IMDB, who have seen this, just don't get some of the jokes. If you were around during that time, and/or if you are of African American descent, you will get a lot of the comedy on display. To compare this to Car Wash makes no sense. And it is not as weird as people make it out to be. As I said earlier, it was simply ahead of its time.

"Darktown strutters" uses the most elaborate, colorful, and huge props and sets like the interior of the "pot-sicle" freezer complete with an igloo. The costumes are some of the most outlandish in the blaxploitation genre. The biker women wear rhinestoned pink and bright yellow jumpsuits and feather head dresses. The comedy is very basic slapstick which relies a lot on the props and action (like kung-fu moves, pies in the face and other uninteresting activities) rather than interesting dialogue or inventive action. Its overall "weirdness" was so obviously trying to be weird that it became sort of routine.

DARKTOWN STRUTTERS is pure soul-crazed 70s entertainment at its maximum! I strongly urge all archivists of blaxploitation cinema to go out and hunt down this one-of-a-kind rarity, a blaxplo-comedy-musical that knows no bounds when it comes to absolute weirdness. Everything from the opening sequence ("Any similarity between this true life adventure to the story Cinderella...IS BULLS--T!") to the rest is genuine cinematic trash, but it's well worth the agony! ALABAMA'S GHOST was just as weird! I'm not too crazy about comedies, but the erraticly innovative formula was far ahead of its time (for 1974). Still, this is a one-way ticket to Funkland Junction! Among the highlights you'll get to see are a police car with a gargantuan siren and a cloning machine, which are hard to believe. The oddball taste does appear to fit well in DARKTOWN STRUTTERS, making this an enjoyable trip through a time when fashion trends and moral values have gone through mass transition. It does contain a familiar musical number by The Dramatics, singing "What You See Is What You Get". It's more than just a classic TV sitcom taped in front of a live audience, it's a campy experience that has recently gone timeless while it improves with age. See this film only once in your life and your infatuation with CAR WASH will be all over! Too bad a lot of you have missed this one!