Shanty Tramp

SHANTY TRAMP is one of those scuzzy, low budget, regional black-and-white exploitation features made in America during the late 1960s and pushing the censorial boundaries; hence this film's surprising amount of topless female nudity. I found it a surprisingly decent production that tells the story of a small town getting stirred up by the machinations of a 'loose' young woman who riles up a local drunk before seducing a black man in a barn. Chaos, unsurprisingly, erupts. It's a film with better characterisation and acting than I expected, quite hard-hitting and grim in its depiction of fallen human characters, and laced with sex and violence.

This film is so sleazy that you'll want to take a shower after watching it--and that's exactly what makes it so much fun. There's something here to offend and repulse everyone. It's the story of a southern white trash party girl looking for thrills, who lures a virtuous young black guy into destruction, along the way having some unforgettable sexual encounters with (a) a crooked tent-revival preacher, (b) a sadistic motorcycle gang leader, and (c) her own alcoholic father. Cheap production values and obvious first-timer acting only add to the sleazy atmosphere. Crack open a beer and enjoy!

Shanty Tramp (1967)

* (out of 4)

Emily (Eleanor Vaill) is the town slut who constantly flaunts her body to anyone willing to look. This film takes a look at one night when a preacher is doing a tent revival and Emily is out doing her thing. She comes onto a black man but when her racist father catches them she screams rape.

SHANTY TRAMP gets a lot of credit from some for being one of the first movies to really look at such issues as rape, sexuality, the town slut and even racism but c'mon. It really isn't all that original and especially since it seems to have taken certain elements of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD and centered the entire film around that.

Director Joseph P. Mawra made several sexploitation pictures in his day including the infamous OLGA trilogy. This film here was obviously shot on a very low-budget and it's also very poorly made. The performances are beyond bad, the cinematography is even worse and I'd argue that the entire thing was quite predictable. In fact, the movie is a real chore to sit through even though it clocks in at just 72-minutes.

The film certainly wants to take on some serious issues but they all come across quite laughable but I will say that the somewhat twist ending did work extremely well and especially how everything played out. I guess you can give the director and producer K. Gordon Murray credit for trying something bold and daring but sadly the production values just aren't there to make it work. It is worth noting that assistiant director was Bob Clark, the man who would go onto make such films as PORKY'S, A CHRISTMAS STORY and CHILDREN SHOULDN'T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS.

Set in some random town in the south, Emily the Shanty Tramp prowls from bar to barn looking for any kind of action she can get. Shanty Tramp is filled with the broadest spectrum of unsavory characters I've seen anywhere: a corrupt preacher, a drunk and abusive father, bumbling racist police officers, and a caricatured black mamma straight from the old Aunt Jemima bottle label. The only even slightly savory character in the film is a passion-addled black man who... well, better not spoil it, but let's just say what the only even slightly virtuous character meets a tragic end. Shanty Tramp was a marvelously controversial movie from all angles, serving the same purient, voyeuristic "other people's disasters" interests that Jerry Springer shows have today. Pink Flamingoes lacks the genuine, heartfelt sleaze that this film has in spades. I give this movie a 10 for unbelievably, shamelessly trashy cinematic excellence.

Shanty Tramp is often mentioned as one of the precursors to the exploitation tradition - and that would certainly seem to be true. While films like Psycho and Peeping Tom had already brought violence to the forefront, this film revels in pure SLEAZE - as while still comparatively tame compared to some later efforts, Shanty Tramp still contains a number of detestable characters including a drunken father, a sinful preacher and, of course, the central character - an insatiable young hussy who uses people for her own enjoyment. The plot focuses on said character as she sets out looking for adventure at other people's expense. She meets a man at a bar, but he ends up getting in a scrap with a black man and is shocked to find that she prefers him! After rounding up his mates, the men prepare for vengeance upon the black man; as does the girl's drunken father, who believes his daughter's lies that he raped her and gets 'every white man in town' looking for him. All this goes on while a shady preacher is busy shouting about the lord!

The film was obviously shot on a very limited budget as the whole thing looks very cheap. Shanty Tramp was shot in black and white, but it's not the fluid black and white picture that adorns many, bigger budgeted, films as this one looks like the filmmakers got a load of film stock on the cheap. The acting too is mostly terrible, and the dialogue is mostly trite; but all this is unlikely to put off the seasoned exploitation fan, who will no doubt be used to poor production values and non-talented performers. None of this stuff matters anyway, as the real focus of the film is on the shady characters and nasty situations that they find themselves in. The film doesn't feature much blood - and indeed, there is only one real shocking sequence in the entire film, but this is down to the time in which the film was made, and Shanty Tramp is still an excellent early taster of things to come. Overall, this might not be a great film in the classic sense - but I'm sure it had some influence on films that are classics, and it's well worth tracking down both for that reason and for the fact that it's a great deal of fun to watch!