Black Shampoo

Right before director Greydon Clark did "Satan's Cheerleaders", he made this 1976 violent blaxploitation cheese ball about a salon owner/gigolo, Mr. Johnathan (John Daniels, who looks like a smaller, african american Lou Ferrigno) getting revenge on the white mobsters who kidnap his secretary/girlfriend, beat up his gay hairdressers and trash his salon. This has plenty of cheezy acting, especially from the stereotypical gay hairdressers. The film is definitely not boring, except for some romantic 70s montages in the middle. There's plenty of sex, nudity, and violence resulting in a conclusion that involves chainsaw mutilations and a pool cue impaling! It shouldn't dramatically disappoint fans of the genre, but don't expect laughs like the Dolemite films. After you see it once, you probably won't come back to it. Its good for a cheap rental on bad 70s night. Black Shampoo goes mostly for a serious tone, although it has problems staying there. How serious can you take an angry hairdresser?

Man, I haven't seen this much nudity and so many stereotypes in a long time! Black, White, Rich, Gay, Straight--It has all of them.

Man,could the Gay hairdressers be more flaming? damn. And I have known a few gay hairdressers.

This has all the 70's clichés ever invented and portrayed in this sort of film, but Shaft, Superfly, Dolemite it ain't! LOL.

OK, it is NOT a great movie, It is a low budget cheese fest, yes.

But I really love seeing women in old movies who haven't been Botoxed, Implanted or Siliconed!You know what I'm sayin'? All natural hair, and...well you know.

The clothes are so funky, and it's hard to believe people dressed like that, but styles have a way of coming back around.

I grew up in those days. I was 12 when this movie came out, so I obviously didn't see it, plus I was nerdy, white and un-hip. (Still white and nerdy) LOL! So don't be so quick to over analyze and critique this film, it is what it is, and so are the other blaxploitation films of the 70's.

I love this kind of stuff, even if it is stupid, lame and dumb.

Damn, those women are fine.

Like 6 nude scenes in 30 minutes! Yee haw! I'm a typical guy, huh? Peace!

Well I'm not saying it's one of my favorite movies but it's entertaining in a "that could never happen" kind of way. I think really bad acting can be funny, as is the case in this movie..also bad editing and cheesy "soft core"...material is humorous to me. I got a good laugh out of it! For instance, there's a scene in the beginning where Mr. Jonathat does a 'house call' and he gets 'attacked' by two white chicks, and the camera pans to some floating object in the pool! There was no reason for it, and I can't even tell what the object is to be honest! That type of really bad film production is entertaining somehow.

"Mr. Jonathan" (John Daniels) is a black hairstylist who owns a salon on the Sunset Strip which is quite popular to his rich, female clientele. Not only does this salon have two dedicated hairdressers in "Artie" (Skip E. Lowe) and "Richard" (Gary Allen) but it also features the talents of the aforementioned Mr. Jonathan who the ladies simply cannot resist. Be that as it may, one day while paying a house call to one of his customers, three men enter his salon and, after physically assaulting Artie, order the newly-hired receptionist named "Brenda St. John" (Tanya Boyd) to contact a mob boss by the name of "Mr. Wilson" (Joseph Carlo)--or else. Quite distraught about being located by Mr. Wilson--and upset that Artie has been hurt--she reluctantly agrees to call him that night. However, before she does that, she feels obliged to apologize to Mr. Jonathan first. One thing eventually leads to another and the two of them become lovers. What Mr. Jonathan doesn't realize, however, is that Mr. Wilson is not a person to trifle with and he is determined to have Brenda as his mistress again. Now, rather than reveal any more I will just say that this turned out to be an entertaining movie to a certain degree in spite of the rather low-budget production values. To that effect, both the script and the acting was equally weak with Skip E. Lowe probably turning in the most uneven performance overall. The one saving grace, however, was the performance of Tanya Boyd who dominated every scene she was in. Granted, she was either partially-clad or completely nude in some of them, but even so she was quite attractive and her appearances definitely benefited the film to a large degree. That being said, while this clearly wasn't a great movie by any means, I guess it had its moments and I have rated it accordingly. Average.

Black Shampoo (1976) is a gem that I recently watched on Tubi. The storyline follows a male black female hairstylist who is also a gigolo and white chick magnet. His new female front desk employee may cause him to fall in love and change his ways. Unfortunately for him her ex-boyfriend is a member of the mob and has other plans for her.

This movie is directed by Greydon Clark (Angel's Brigade) and stars John Daniels (Getting Over), Tanya Boyd (The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood), William Bonner (Big Foot), Anne Gaybis (Friday the 13th Part III) and Jacqulin Cole (Angels' Brigade).

This felt like a movie that couldn't decide if it wanted to be soft porn or a blaxploitation film, so it's a little bit of both. The soundtrack is excellent and the premise had potential. Unfortunately, John Daniels isn't as charismatic as some main characters from this era and his lines are nothing special, but the sex scenes are excellent and ladies are gorgeous. The ending of this film with the chainsaw and ax is a 10/10 and the highlight of the film.

Overall, this movie is very average with a tremendous ending. I would score this a 6/10 and recommend seeing it once.