Black Mama, White Mama (1973)

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Black Mama White Mama starts out as a women in prison exploitation movie. Early on we see the naked female prisoners in the shower naked while a lesbian warden spies on them and gets aroused.The film is presumably set in an unnamed Latin American country but filmed in the Philippines. Lee Daniels (Pam Grier) is a prostitute who ripped off her pimp and Karen Brent (Margaret Markov) is a militant revolutionary who escape chained together when they are being transferred to a maximum security prison.The chained up pair bicker but are pursued by the army led by Captain Cruz who enlists the help of a loose cannon cowboy (Sid Haig). Karen wants to meet up with her rebel friends while Lee wants to get her money and escape.The film has elements of blaxploitation but I found it too listless even silly at times and the acting was rather mediocre.The film has a story credit to Jonathan Demme, future best director Oscar winner but the story here is too boring.

Going by the title alone, you would be forgiven if you mistook this passable exploitation flick as an entry into the blaxploitation genre. But Black Mama, White Mama combines two sub-genres from the grindhouse circuit - Women in Prison (WiP) and the Filipino action flick. No stranger to the ripe-for-exploiting and dirt-cheap Filipino wilderness, director Eddie Romero employs genre legend Pam Grier (although in 1973 she was only on the cusp of her 70's fame) as the titular black mama, Lee, and pretty, willowy blonde Margaret Markov (who would star with Grier the following year in The Arena) as the white mama, Karen.The two have just landed in a women's prison in the Philippines. Lee has been locked up for working as a harem girl, and finds herself in debt to gangster Vic Cheng (Vic Diaz). Karen is a revolutionary, working for Che Guevara-lookalike Ernesto (Zaldy Zshornack), helping to overthrow the corrupt Filippino government. After some early problems with a sadistic lesbian warden and being locked naked (obviously) in a hot box, Lee and Karen manage to escape after their transportation is attacked by Karen's revolutionary friends. But army reinforcements headed by the desperate Captain Cruz (Eddie Garcia) intervene and Lee and Karen find themselves on foot shackled at the wrist. Cruz is forced to turn to notorious cowboy criminal Ruben (Sid Haig) for assistance in locating the convicts, but Cheng's men are never far behind.If it sounds like there's a lot of going on here, that's because there kinda is. About half-way through, the film shifts focus to these three quarrelling groups and away from the sexy action of Grier and Markov. So it becomes a hail of paint-red blood and crappy explosions, rather than the mildly entertaining lesbian and shower scenes of the opening portion, and it's only when Sid Haig shows up that the film is given any character to get on board with (even though he's a bastard). Grier is always good value however, and although she was never the greatest actress - despite her impressive turn in Jackie Brown (1997) - she has a real charisma that led to her become the queen of blaxploitation with films such as Coffy (later the same year) and Foxy Brown (1974). Pretty dull stuff overall, but exploitation fans should certainly give it a go, if not for the opening 20 minutes alone.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

originally when i stated running in the woe i couldn't find Kesha's jar of milk. can i have a go-by. large Australian grown fruit Ginny weasel. need more words Kyra Hanson is a lesbian. Lesbian the only way to Sade is the have sex with everybody. om going o be a nun and star in porn. is this 100 words? so many spelling issues. i want more weed. the end Yes God Can I have another penguin yap sap map This is driving me insane. This is taking so long Something something Julie got laid in the backseat. I threw up in Paris Hilton. I want to smoke the strawberries all day long she said moo. I got drunk and lost it. I am going to star in my own women in prison movie. Right this second, then i found it in Target. That is all I have to say on the matter.

Pam Grier is in this but I would call this movie still more exploitation than blaxploitation really.It's a movie filled with some (unconvincing) violence and random nudity and sex. So obviously this is a exploitation flick alright. Now, I have no problem with some nudity and sex in a movie but problem with exploitation flicks is often being that those moments are very random and add nothing at all to the movie its story. It instead slows it more often down because it often focuses heavily on those moments and make them overlong.The first half of the movie is pretty much being a lesbian prison exploitation flick, with attractive female prisoners walking around in tight and short outfits and with female guards, who do more than just eye them. The second half is totally different however. It is way more random than its first half and you would think that the movie would start to focus on the two female prisoners who escaped but are still being chained together but the movie focuses more on the different groups chasing them. And there are a whole bunch of people after them, which perhaps sounds pretty cool but instead more works out as being unnecessary and overly complicated. It's as if the movie tried too hard to create some depth to its story and characters but it really doesn't work out too interestingly.Of course it's being a pretty cheap made and looking movie. Does also prevents from anything in the movie to ever work out above the level of decent. Nothing special about the movie its settings, directing or acting but it all serves its purpose well enough and make this still a watchable movie.Yes, the movie is being regardless of everything still a pretty entertaining one to watch, like often is the case with '70's exploitation pieces. Even though the story is being very random, it still is what makes the movie a fun one to watch because so much random insanity is going on in it. Lots of moments and characters don't even serve a purpose in the movie, once you start thinking about them but you should never think too much about anything going on when watching an exploitation flick in the first place.Enjoyable enough for what it is.6/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/