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.

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!

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.

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. (**)