Shanty Tramp

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.

Exploitative story of a day (mostly night) in the life of a shanty tramp, southern slang for prostitute. What does this movie have but every cliché you might imagine people think about when they use the phrase 'white trash'.

On this one hot summer night, there's prostitution, religious hypocrisy, misogyny, drunkenness, fistfights, bigotry, interracial sex, biker gangs, incest, lynching, moonshine, a car chase with explosive results, nudity, murder, and even an instance of walking out on the restaurant tab! There's more than can be listed.

All presented in stereotyped characterizations, but the lead female, Lee Holland, does an admirable job in her only film role ever, as does the fellow playing the lecherous preacher, a Paul Newman look-alike. Also nice is the fact that all scenery are actual locations, making for a realistic setting. Most likely someplace in Florida, as the accents are not too deep south, more typical for Florida, and the producer K Gordon Murray worked out of a facility in Coral Gables.

One of the more enjoyable exploitation trash films I've seen.

If you don't know what you're letting yourself in for, you probably shouldn't be watching this. Otherwise, it delivers all it promises in every respect. You may feel the need to bathe after this delightful trash and will have numerous lines to quote. Joyfully sleazy.

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.

Somewhere in the generic South, is a town. This town has everything from a lecherous, greedy preacher, to the town drunk and from a motorcycle gang to bootleggers. This movie is an exploitation movie. Its not a very good one, however. But it does manage to exploit everything "southern".

Emily is the town whore. She whores it up real good. If she's not hitting on the preacher or making out with random bikers (bikers with names like Savage and Rat), she's having sex with Daniel (the only black man in town, who lives with his mother) and causing all kinds of evil. You know Emily is an evil sort, from the opening scene. With the song "While the Saints Go Marching On", she staggers drunkenly through town hitting on men and putting out matches before people can light their cigarettes (truly evil). Her father, the town drunk, abuses and beats her. There are racist police around. A posse is formed. Hooch is produced. A lot of scheming goes on, with the soundtrack being jazzy beatnik. There's also an insanely long crazy 60's rock/beatnik dancing sequence at the "bar". Truly horrifying.

The dialog is atrocious in this movie. For example, a scene between Savage the biker leader and Emily goes something like this :

Emily : "Come on big man. You promised me a fin. I wanna see it."

Savage : "Shut up baby and put out."

The truly classic lines belong to Savage (solo). Lines like :

"I'm so dry I can drink root beer." ; "Dance goddamn it. Dance !! Can't you hear the music ??!!"

I would only recommend this movie for communal drunk watching. By the way, this movie had the worst stabbing by a topless woman EVER !!!