Vintage Pulp | Jul 2 2022 |
Anyone hoping for a relaxing weekend should probably choose a different place.
We've featured several blaxploitation posters by George Akimoto, so you could be forgiven for thinking the above effort was also painted by him, especially because it's in a similar photo-realistic style, but it's actually the art of Robert C. Kinyon, a new name to our website. He painted it for the Fred Williamson actioner Bucktown, which premiered in the U.S. today in 1975. We've uploaded close-ups below so you can see some of the nice elements Kinyon included, especially the urban street scene with its overlapping, multi-colored neon lights. We'll be keeping a watch for more art from him.
Obviously we watched this movie, and plotwise Williamson arrives in the eponymous Bucktown to bury his brother, who died of pneumonia. Included in his estate is the local nightspot Club Alabam. Williamson wants to sell it and get out of town, until he discovers his brother died of pneumonia alright—after being beaten and left in the freezing rain for refusing to pay off the local cops. Turns out Bucktown is crooked from the top of the police department all the way down to the bottom of the county clerk's office. Only the mayor is clean, but he's helpless.
The Bucktown cartel tries to shake down Williamson for money owed by his brother, as well as for future nightclub profits, but he isn't the type to be intimidated, so he calls in some out-of-town help. A trainload of northern hustlers arrive and soon it's open warfare as Williamson's backup crew starts shooting down crooked lawmen. It's pretty clear, though, that he's going to have trouble with his helpers. That trouble is worse than he imagined. Once the local law is eliminated his pals take over the town and Williamson is basically back at square one. Lesson: power corrupts.
Pam Grier is in this, which is only half the reason we watched it. The other is Williamson, who we've come to regard as a great screen presence. Grier co-stars as a justice-minded local girl who quickly falls into bed with him. Her early roles usually allowed her to play it tough, but here she's a worried girlfriend—a part that doesn't fit her well or use her talents properly. Even so, she's still the lovely Miss Grier and she gets plenty of screen time. Also aboard is the reliable Thalmus Rasulala as head of the out-of-town invaders, and Carl Weathers as of one of his gunmen.
In the end you wind up with a movie the resides somewhere in the middle ranks of blaxploitation in terms of quality and entertainment value. It's low budget, and only passably acted, but it offers up a vision of smalltown corruption right out of Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest. In both cases the hero might have been better off heading down the road, but in both cases they're required to stick around and beget some brutal violence. Bucktown barely survives the onslaught, but it's just another day in the realm of blaxploitation.
Vintage Pulp | Aug 25 2019 |
Just call him the noble formerly known as Dracula.
We don't have to tell you what Blacula is. It's clear from the poster alone that it's a retelling of the Dracula legend. It's also an early high point for blaxploitation cinema. It isn't perfectly made, but as an allegory it's on the nose: centuries ago an African prince named Mamuwalde was transformed into a vampire out of sheer racist spite, cursed to eternal hunger, taken as cargo to a strange foreign land, and now fights to survive there, far from his home. William Marshall in the lead role is doubtless the sweatiest vampire in movie history, but he's good in what is by definition a patently absurd role. In supporting parts are Thalmus Rasulala, Denise Nicholas, and the ravishing Vonetta McGee, who Mamuwalde thinks is his long lost wife Luva and treats to some sweet vampire love. As pure horror Blacula is middling, and it's homophobic in parts, but audiences liked the film and made it one of the top grossers of the year. Despite its flaws the undead Prince Mamuwalde embodied a fresh approach to black themed cinema, and it's certainly fun to watch. It opened in the U.S. today in 1972.
Vintage Pulp | Dec 25 2017 |
Grier tries to foil an assassination plot.
It's Christmas day, and what is the main thing everyone does today? They go overboard. So in that vein we have more posts for you than you could have rightly expected, though we'll admit we wrote them in advance and right now we're nowhere near a computer. We're starting the X-mas treats with this vintage poster for the Pam Grier blaxploitation flick Friday Foster, a film that opened in U.S. today in 1975. After successes with Coffy, Foxy Brown, et al, American International Pictures steered Pam a bit more mainstream with the PG rated Sheba, Baby and learned from that mistake. So they turned the heat back up, scheduled a Christmas release date, and gave Grier fans a movie with twice the action, twice the humor, and twice the tongue-in-cheek factor as usual, plus three steamy Grier nude scenes rather than the usual two.
Grier plays a photo-journalist who tries to get a sneaky paparazzi shot of a reclusive millionaire only to find herself photographing an assassination attempt-turned-bloodbath. While American International kicked things up a notch, the customary Grier grit is missing, as too many wisecracks and camp moments leave the film without any heft. It almost seems as if, with a full blown international star on its hands and costs rising, American International decided to cut corners in pre-production. Script-wise Friday Foster is too formulaic and self-conscious. Soundtrack-wise, instead of songs performed by a viable R&B artist, it has cheeseball wacka wacka interstitial music, with chick singers trilling, “Hey Friday, whatcha doin' girl, hey, whatcha doin' girl whatcha doin'.” Direction-wise, four-time Grier collaborator Jack Hill has been tossed in favor of Arthur Marks, who came up directing episodes of the television show Perry Mason.
Friday Foster was Grier's last go-round with American International, and a good thing, because somebody forgot she became popular playing a streetwise, ass-kicking, So-Cal soul sister. Her turn as a middle-class photo-journalist might have worked, but not with the support she needed chopped from under her. American International wanted to mainstream her, except it had no idea how to do it. But Grier's still Grier, and even stuck in what feels like a washed out version of her better films, she remains as watchable as any star of her era. After another couple of years the work would come in spurts, a small part here, a television show there, an occasional lead role, yet bit by bit, appearance by appearance, Grier would stitch together a career spanning four decades and counting. Friday Foster is isn't the best entry on her résumé, but even midding Grier is worthwhile Grier.