THE MACK (1973)

 It's a toss-up between this and SUPER FLY as to which is my all-time favorite blaxploitation flick. What I think makes these two special is that they delve deeper than your average urban action film from this era and touch on some societal issues. In this case the main struggle is between two brothers that represent a couple of different avenues black folks saw as paths out of poverty in the 70s. One is the way our main character Goldie(Max Julien) travels and involves the criminal life involving pimping whores and robbery. His brother prefers the militant approach in a clear reference to The Black Panthers. There's also the more usual evil white cops, evil Italian mobsters and fellow pimps that you can't always trust that show up to round things out. There's many great funky tunes, so many great lines and scenes in this. Many of those involve Richard Pryor who was clearly very messed up while acting in this but also involve some very realistic barbershop and Player's Ball bits which give this film a more documentary-like feeling to go along with it's epicness. A guy gets locked in a car's trunk with some nippy rats, a pimp gets dynamite shoved in his mouthpiece and a fatman od's on battery-acid! Overall this a great gritty classic that conveys a time and place that is long gone but will live on forever through these works.




Re-released as THE MACK AND HIS PACK:

Egyptian Mack!:

One of the all-time great double-features!:

THE SIX THOUSAND DOLLAR NIGGER (1978)

                                    "I've got myself a six thousand dollar nigger!!"

 'Wildman' Steve was a 70's stand-up comedian in the mold of a Redd Foxx or Rudy Ray Moore. He showed up in Moore's film PETEY WHEATSTRAW, THE DEVIL'S SON IN LAW a year before this and I guess that gave him the idea to try and make his own version of that movie. While Steve is not quite on the level of Moore, and this movie is basically an even lower budgeted version of his films, there's still a few laughs to be had here and this is a pretty damn entertaining watch if you dig the blaxploitation genre. The story is obviously sorta based on the SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN TV-show except instead of a pilot the Steve here is a wino who is given "bionic" powers by an unscrupulous midget mad scientist along with his flashy pimp sidekick and cohorts. There's a few super silly sex scenes complete with naked black boobs and ass, jokes right out of a DOLEMITE movie and an ending that doesn't really make much sense but OK. The only negative thing I will bring up is the soundtrack is super-generic and coulda used a shot of some funk. But besides this it's just always great to find a 70's blaxploitation flick that seems to have been lost for a long time and isn't crap. Thanks to Vinegar Syndrome for doing god's work and releasing this! Check it out! AKA SUPERSOUL BROTHER.

The comedy stylings of Wildman Steve!:

DOLEMITE (1975)

           

       
                             "you know I don't wear no fuckin' cotton drawers!"

 DOLEMITE might be the greatest blaxploitation movie ever made. I say this because when people think of the genre of blaxploitation films they imagine this movie. Even people who have never seen this, or even heard of Dolemite, still think of this movie! That's some pretty powerful shit right there! Movies like BLACK DYNAMITE owe everything to this film, in fact everyone who spoofs black 70's movies(MADTV etc.) owes this film, hell even Ol Dirty Bastard inserted himself into clips from this to make his very own music video. Almost every other goddamn line of dialogue in this film is quotable. Maybe the only negative thing I can bring up is that, like many of the black films from this time, they spend a little too long in the nightclub setting. Also Mr. Rudy Ray Moore's stand-up act is not exactly the most hilarious set you could hope to see and it drags for a little bit. Besides this though everything works for an all-time classic example of an exploitation film. The acting is mostly terrible, but not on purpose like those new prefab-"cult" movies, and is a big part of the charm. D'Urville Martin as arch-nemesis, evil-pimp Willie Green actually does the best job out of anyone. The "Hamburger Pimp" character has to be a real junkie or he deserves an Oscar for this performance. The "kung-fu" is hilariously awkward and most of the kung-fu ho's are not exactly beauty queens but if you can't find enjoyment in a film like this you might be a terrible human-being.
 The sequel to this THE HUMAN TORNADO is technically slightly better but I have to give it to this one for historical purposes.