DARKTOWN STRUTTERS (1975)
D. William Witney. Stars: Trina Parks, Roger E. Mosley, Dick Miller and the Dramatics.
When Quentin Tarantino began championing the work of Western auteur William Witney some ten years ago, he was fond of pointing out “how cool it was” that a man who’d made his bones directing Roy Rogers and Bela Lugosi serials ended his directorial career with this deliciously surreal Blaxploitation comedy.
But while it made for good talk show patter, the anecdote wasn’t entirely accurate; Echo Bridge Entertainment have since unearthed the man’s real swan song, a quiet 1982 post-Civil War Western with Skip Homeier and Cherie Lunghi called QUELL & CO. (recently retitled SHOWDOWN AT EAGLE GAP for its latest DVD release). Featuring Witney himself in a small role, the film was a fitting, if unspectacular, conclusion to the filmmaker’s 50 year, 143 film career.
But while DARKTOWN STRUTTERS (AKA GET UP AND BOOGIE) may not have been Witney’s final film, it was certainly his most unusual. Produced by his frequent collaborator Gene Corman (with whom he had made the previous year's I ESCAPED FROM DEVIL's ISLAND) and written by HIT MAN scribe George Armitage (now a respected mainstream commodity thanks to neo-noirs like GROSSE POINT BLANK and THE BIG BOUNCE), the film deftly mixes cool Stax soul sounds, frantic serial pacing, sci-fi gadgetry, broad physical humor and a few stabs at social commentary into a barely coherent but always entertaining cocktail.
Perhaps best known for her role as “Thumper” in DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER, Trina Parks provides the heart and soul of DARKTOWN STRUTTERS. She steals every scene she’s in as Syreena, the leader of a black all-girl motorcycle gang that unites with a rival group (led by MAGNUM P.I.’s Roger E. Mosley) to find her missing mother, Cinderella. The ensuing search not only reveals Cinderella’s whereabouts but also exposes, among other things, a diabolical fast-food magnate's plot to clone black leaders with a candy-colored “baby-making machine...”
Witney may have directed nearly 150 pictures by the time the script for DARKTOWN STRUTTERS landed on his desk, but the veteran filmmaker brings Armitage’s outrageous scenario to life with energy and verve to rival any twenty-something USC Film School grad. While no stranger to science fiction (he shot such chillers as DR. SATAN’S ROBOT before bringing Jules Verne’s MASTER OF THE WORLD to the screen with Charles Bronson and Vincent Price), he wisely pushes the gadgetry (sonic cannons, futuristic police cars, etc.) into the background and puts a welcome emphasis on comedy and characterization.
So, instead of dazzling viewers with high-tech thrills, the Strutters’ turn heads with their outrageous 70s fashions and tricked-out, fiberglass-bodied motorcycles, Syreena’s decidedly fey brother shows off his bitchin' smooth kung-fu moves at every opportunity, bumbling cops led by Corman stalwart Dick Miller chase the girls relentlessly, Roger E. Mosley reveals the charisma that would soon make him a household name, legendary Stax recording artists The Dramatics put on a concert for Syreena in their prison cell, and the fast-food king clones an adult version of himself – in diapers.
Incredibly, these disparate elements work together, at least within the context of the candy-colored universe created on the screen. And for this, special mention should be made of the inventive production design by Jack Fisk, a gifted technician who would later take his art to even more dizzying heights in Brian DePalma’s PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE.
A key piece of Blaxploitation, DARKSTOWN STRUTTERS remains frustratingly misunderstood and obscure. Producer Gene Corman's brother Roger even bungles the film's history in one of his official memoirs, claiming the picture was shot in the South while locations, landmarks, street signs and even the film's dialogue reveal it was lensed in and around downtown Los Angeles and Culver City.
Unfortunately, the movie has proven to be depressingly hard to find on home video. At the time of this writing, the closest thing to a “legit” DVD release has come from East West DVD, whose budget edition is cursed by poor sound and color and may very well have been sourced from an old VHS tape.
But until a definitive version is released, I’ll actually recommend the barebones East West disc, so go ahead and tuck a copy next to I ESCAPED FROM DEVIL'S ISLAND and QUELL & CO. on on your "preferred viewing" shelf.
Because your world will be a happier place once this supremely twisted Blaxploitation oddity becomes a part of it.
Originally published by www.avmaniacs.com.
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