Tag Archives: 1975

Capsules, It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: WELCOME HOME, BROTHER CHARLES (1975)

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AKA Soul Vengeance

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“Too bad the title ‘Shaft’ was already taken.”–Peter Hanson, “Every ‘70s Movie”

DIRECTED BY: Jamaa Fanaka

FEATURING: Marlo Monte, Reatha Gray, Stan Kamber, Ben Bigelow, Jake Carter, Jackie Ziegler

PLOT: After a three-year stint in the pen, Charles returns home with an extraordinary new ability that will help him settle scores with the racist cop who nabbed him and the former friend who stole his drug-dealing business and his old girlfriend.

Still from "Welcome Home, Brother Charles" (1975)

COMMENTS: Jamaa Fanaka rejected the term “blaxploitation” to describe his films. He felt it was more apt to describe the movies that white producers made to exploit the market, as opposed to home-grown productions representing the real concerns of black people. But he was no elitist; this is, after all, the man behind the Penitentiary series (one of which also has a spot in our reader-suggestion queue). So it’s interesting to see what Fanaka had in mind when he first had the chance to tell a story of his own. Welcome Home, Brother Charles, a movie that he cobbled together on weekends during his tenure at UCLA film school, contains plenty of sex and violence to titillate audiences, and the portrait of an African American society ridden with drugs, booze, and prostitution would be right at home in the genre. But this is a film with a genuine anger to express, and it manifests itself in the most extraordinary revenge.

(The story of Fanaka’s name is too good not to be told. The aspiring filmmaker born Walter Gordon attended a screening of Cooley High and was shocked to discover that director Michael Schultz, name notwithstanding, was black. Determined to avoid any confusion, he got hold of a Swahili dictionary and invented a new name for himself that roughly translates as “through togetherness we will find success.”)

Things look bad for our hero from the start: we open with the title character on the edge of a building, with a white cop trying to talk him down. Then we flashback to when all the trouble began, most notably his arrest by a cop so bigoted that he tries to cut off Charles’ genitals even before he’s read him his rights. (Not surprisingly, this earns the cop a mild “knock it off” from his superiors as punishment. He gets more of a smackdown from his cheating wife, who notes that he’s not only bad in bed, but doesn’t even have the fortitude to slap her around.) Monte’s scream is purely derived from pain, but it serves as a howl of injustice.

To this point, this has all been extreme and unfair, but not unexpected. The hint that something weirder is coming first arrives during Charles’ stay in jail, when he has terrible dreams with suggestions of illicit experimentation. It’s clear that something much stranger is going on when Charles pays a visit to the racist cop’s home and seduces the bigot’s wife. She is flat-out hypnotized by the sight of him, literally dropping her panties and agreeing to do nothing while he seeks vengeance on her odious husband. In fact, that turns out to be his whole plan: find the men who railroaded him, seduce their ladies with his superior sexual prowess, and then kill the damned racist pig. It’s a simple, straightforward scheme, only complicated by Charles’ weapon of choice.

You see, while we recognize the trope of the well-endowed black man, Charles’ gifts are considerably  greater than that. In fact, his manhood is incredibly large, unthinkably long, and fully prehensile. (If you were paying close attention during the opening credits, you are rewarded for spotting the foreshadowing.) Yep, his trouser snake is actually a 15-foot boa constrictor, and it operates in similar fashion, wrapping around the necks of the white men who wronged him and choking them until they’re dead. This is the astounding plot twist that kicks Welcome Home, Brother Charles into the strange stratosphere, because while this site is no stranger to giant johnsons pursuing justice, this killer anaconda is on a whole other level.

Perhaps the surest sign that Fanaka did not want a run-of-the-mill blaxploitation film is his determination to end the film on a dark note. Despite the monster in his pants, Charles can’t hold off institutional racism for long, and the fact that going out on his own terms is the victory reflects this movie’s mindset. Brother Charles finishes with a serious-minded epigram—“Let them indulge their pride if thinking I am destroyed is a comfort to them; let it be”—that isn’t really earned, and which suggests a very different film in Fanaka’s head from the one we just watched. If that film existed, the third act strangled it to death with its audacious twist. Maybe Welcome Home, Brother Charles isn’t blaxploitation. But something’s being exploited, that’s for sure.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…really, really weird… one of the most insane movies you will ever see. It’s also not very good, but it’s not awful, and I still wholeheartedly recommend it, at least to lovers of all things cheese related.”–Ryan McDonald, Shameless Self Expression

(This movie was nominated for review by TimK. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.) 

Soul Vengeance

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Capsules, It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: KUNG FU CONTRA AS BONECAS [KUNG FU AGAINST THE DOLLS] (1975)

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AKA Bruce Lee versus Gay Power

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DIRECTED BY: Adriano Stuart

FEATURING: Adriano Stuart, Maurício do Valle, Helena Ramos, Edgard Franco, Nadir Fernandes

PLOT: When Chang, a wandering warrior of mixed origin who is well-versed in the skills and philosophies of kung fu, returns home to find that his family has been murdered by a gang of outrageous bandits, he vows to seek vengeance.

Kung Fu Contra As Bonecas [AKA Bruce Lee vs. Gay Power] ()

COMMENTS: No one associated with the making of this film ever called it Bruce Lee vs. Gay Power. This is important, because that extraordinary title seems to be at the heart of its lingering reputation. If some enterprising videocassette huckster hadn’t decided to employ some savvy attention-getting branding, combining an extreme example of Bruceploitation with a thematically unexpected opponent, then Kung Fu contra As Bonecas might never have made it out of Brazil. As it is, I’ve had to take a crash course in Brazilian history and film trends just to wrap my head around exactly what’s going on here, to say nothing of stoking a passing familiarity with poorly aged 1970s American television. Even with that, I have my doubts as to whether I’ve gotten it all. It is often said of art that if you have to explain what your piece means, then it has failed. Kung Fu contra As Bonecas has this problem to the nth power. 

Let’s start with the part that was closest to my wheelhouse. The movie is, in large part, an outright spoof of the David Carradine vehicle “Kung Fu,” the popular American TV series in which a distinctly non-Asian itinerant warrior made his way across the Old West confronting various forms of oppression and bigotry. (Depending upon who is telling the story, the real Bruce Lee either devised the premise for “Kung Fu” and had it stolen by unscrupulous producers, or was first in line for the lead role but was bypassed by studio execs who couldn’t fathom making an Asian actor the star of a prime-time TV series.)

Playing the lead role himself in a ludicrous oversized jet-black wig, Adriano Stuart deliberately mocks “Kung Fu”’s conventions, with flashbacks that directly parody the hero’s education in some dark monastery, turning the show’s innocent boy into a privileged young man in a graduation cap and gown and bearing the sobriquet “mosquito” (in place of the series’ “grasshopper”). He is instructed in the ways of Zen calm, which he consistently fails to maintain. In case that’s not obvious enough, this Chang sports a pink tank top featuring a glittery illustration of Carradine’s character hovering above the words “KUNG FU,” a garment that one suspects he picked up in a Hot Topic. It’s either unrestrained commitment to the bit or desperate flailing to make sure everyone gets the joke. 

Chang’s enemies are the cangaceiros, outlaws who brutalize the region, engaging in robbery, rape, and murder. Scenes in which the gang terrorizes innocents almost seem to be aping Sergio Leone, depicting their violence graphically and unblinkingly and setting a serious contrast to the ridiculous hero. However, the feminine habits Continue reading IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: KUNG FU CONTRA AS BONECAS [KUNG FU AGAINST THE DOLLS] (1975) →

Apocryphally Weird

56*. TOMMY (1975)

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“The Old Testament teems with prophecies of the Messiah, but nowhere is it intimated that that Messiah is to stand as a God to be worshiped. He is to bring peace on earth, to build up the waste places–to comfort the broken-hearted, but nowhere is he spoken of as a deity.”—Olympia Brown

DIRECTED BY: Ken Russell

FEATURING: Roger Daltrey, Ann-Margret, Oliver Reed, , , Jack Nicholson, Eric Clapton, Elton John, Barry Winch

PLOT: Tommy witnesses the murder of his WWII fighter-pilot father at the hands of his mother and step-father, who demand silence. The boy obliges, becoming wholly unresponsive to stimuli, aside from touch. When Tommy happens upon a pinball machine in a junkyard, he soon rockets to fame and messianic adulation from rebellious youths countrywide.

Still from Tommy (1975)

BACKGROUND:

  • The Who’s Tommy hit number two on the UK charts, going Gold within four months. Ken Russell did not care much for the music, but was intrigued by the ideas explored in the double album.
  • Russell’s Tommy was a box-office smash, garnering two Academy Award nominations (for Best Actress and Best Score).
  • George Lucas was slated to direct Tommy but opted instead to develop his own film, American Graffiti.
  • Every pinball machine featured in the film predates the original album’s release date of 1969.
  • Elton John refused the role of “Pinball Wizard” until he was promised the oversized Doc Marten boots worn by the character.
  • Mick Jagger, Tiny Tim, and were considered for the role of the Acid Queen before Tina Turner was signed on.
  • Every actor performs their own vocals—some more capably than others.

INDELIBLE IMAGE: At the height of his powers—and that would include the year of Tommy‘s release—Ken Russell made nothing but indelible images. But for stylistic and thematic reasons (not to mention sheer poetic excess), Tommy’s ordeal as he is installed within a syringe-imbued iron maiden during Tina Turner’s blow-out performance takes at least as much of the cake as any of the other wonders blaring on the screen.

TWO WEIRD THINGS: Chrome-twinkling sex drug and rock ‘n’ roll body cage; a flood of beans fit for a queen

WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: The Who provide the blaring wall of sound, Ken Russell’s crew manifest the blazing visuals, and a crack squad of heavy-hitter, top-of-their-game actors provide impressively calibrated bombastic characters, making for an audio-visual adventure that giddily drags you through a bonanza of immoderation. All somehow within the bounds of a “PG” rating.

Trailer for Tommy (1975)

COMMENTS: When you have a narrative that is as flimsy as it is outlandish, one way to make it work is cover it with lights, champagne, Continue reading 56*. TOMMY (1975) →

List Candidates

APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: DARKTOWN STRUTTERS (1975)

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DIRECTED BY: William Witney

FEATURING: Trina Parks, Roger E. Mosley, Norman Bartold

PLOT: Syreena must overcome a series of obstacles in order to track down her missing mother.

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: If a Blaxploitation-cum-slapstick comedy with motorbike klansmen, racist keystone cops, and a glorious soul song-and-dance behind dungeon bars doesn’t fit our bill, perhaps we’ve gone too jive.

COMMENTS: My reaction to the Darktown Strutters experience immediately runs the risk of banging out a long, long list of “What the…?” reactions. Beyond those listed immediately above, there are countless others, but will try to be strong—strong like Syreena as she thwarts institutional evil, playboy chicanery, and one of the strangest, and most racist, conspiracies ever committed to celluloid. Looking back at the hour-and-a-half of sights and sounds that flew past my eyes, two things stand out strongly.

The first is that director William Witney, alongside screenwriter George Armitage and a ready and willing cast, must have had the time of his life. The movie’s overall quality is, to put it diplomatically, uneven. Maybe. It’s difficult to say, since the whole shebang varies in energy between 9 and 11 on the dial, with some points suggesting the selector knob fell off as the cast and crew tried cranking it even higher. It’s never boring, and any misfires quickly become distant memories. Starting out as something of a traditional vengeance-and-music bit, Darktown Strutters eventually staggers its giddy way into a socio-science-fiction that, though troublingly dark on reflection, is presented to the viewer in such a candy-crazy way that it comes off as Benny Hill meets “Outer Limits”.

The second notable feature is Strutters‘ serious side, which compels me to respect it as a “serious film” (well, no—but at least a serious commentary) despite the gag-a-minute presentation. I’d do well to have years of cultural study to appreciate the fuller implications, but my cursory knowledge of history and cinema lets me appreciate how searing this movie’s satire is. Watermelon, ribs, subservience, and defiance—while one of the most cracker-assed of crackers gripes about not feeling appreciated—this script hits a lot of spots that’d be sore if there weren’t such a fuck-the-Man sense of frolicry going on.

Because this is entertainment! A vengeance and music picture. And there is much to cheer as Syreena and her biker gals rally the town, the dastardly villain gets tarred and feathered, and funk and soul goodness delights the ear.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…the idea of an allgirl black motorcycle gang taking on a Col. Sanders surrogate has a nice incongruous absurdity. The performances are so mired down in the endlessly confused situations that it’s hard to judge them, but everyone seems to be having fun, and if the movie leaves you wondering what it was all supposed to be about, maybe it leaves you with half of a silly grin, too.” — Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times (contemporaneous)

Darktown Strutters (The Film Detective Restored Version)

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It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue, List Candidates

APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: DEAFULA (1975)

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DIRECTED BY: Peter Wechsberg

FEATURING: Peter Wechsberg (as Peter Wolf), Lee Darel, Dudley Hemstreet, James Randall

PLOT: In a universe where everyone communicates via American Sign Language (ASL), theology student Steve Adams discovers that he is the son of Dracula and has been leading a second life as a blood-thirsty vampire with a trail of bodies in his wake.

Still from deafula (1975)

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Even if it weren’t one of the first (and, to this day, one of the only) films made exclusively in ASL, Deafula’s imaginative presentation of a world where gestural speech is the lingua franca and its singular interpretation of the Dracula legend make it a movie that truly has no comparison.

COMMENTS: Let’s start with the remarkable durability of the Dracula myth. Vampires have lost none of their fascination even in our modern world (I’ve discussed this phenomenon before), and Dracula lords over them all, appearing in some form in more than 200 films. Unlike most of his classic horror brethren (werewolves, mummies, zombies, Frankenstein monsters, creatures from black lagoons and the like), Dracula is verbal, and even handsome, as likely to use seductive words as violent action to achieve his aims. So when an underrepresented community wants to tap into the mainstream, there’s probably no figure more iconic and adaptable and copyright-free than Dracula, standing by and ready to tell his tale once more. Blacula, anyone?

And so we come to Deafula, in which writer/director/star  Wechsberg endeavored to give the deaf community something they had never had: a popular entertainment of their very own. He conjured up a messily layered version of the story, with the fundamental vampire-kills-people plotline frequently taking a back seat to the hero’s fraught relationship with his father, a police procedural featuring a Van Helsing substitute whom everybody hates, and a substantial commitment to themes of religious devotion and divine punishment. We do get Dracula in this movie (as an appropriately imperious and condescending figure), but he’s not our star. Instead, our hero is a pretty average, milquetoast kind of guy who, when he transforms into a villain, looks less like a demonic force and more like a low-rent Svengoolie with a ridiculous fake nose.

It is impossible to divorce Deafula from the circumstances of its creation. A drama student at Gallaudet University, Wechsberg was drawn to the power of film, and after getting into some production work, he scraped enough money to make a movie his way, with the deaf audience in mind. (He also aspired to give deaf creators their due; the closing credits specifically distinguish the hearing-impaired performers from their hearing colleagues.) His inexperience shows, especially when it comes to action. He crafts a clever introduction to reveal his hero emerging from the vampire state, but afterward gets caught up in disjointed edits and inconsistent pacing. Deafula’s savage mind-control of a would-be robber should be evidence of his Continue reading APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: DEAFULA (1975) →