To that, we might add that
she had a killer figure and she was sexy, and she had fabulous eyes.
* Perhaps due in part to
Ms. Bell's status of being one of the first Afro-American women to get nekkid
in Playboy, while Ms. Joi only did
cheesecake for race-specific publications like Players, "the Black Playboy". (Although, according to
Ms. Joi, "I did do some [nude] pictures, but they were never published. I'm
sure they're floating around somewhere."**) The original photo of the above altered image — found at Pulp International — is actually a
cover photo from Players. Players
deemed Marilyn "America's Favorite Black Poster Girl" in 1980 and,
two years later, voted her one of "America's Ten Sexiest Black Women"
— and she was.
** Quote taken from an
informative interview published in Shock Cinema #16 in 2000, which can be found at the Internet Archives. We make extensive
use of that interview in the following blog entry. For those of you who don't
know Shock Cinema, it is one of the best magazines around,
particularly for people who waste their lives reading sites like this one. Check it out, buy an
issue — you'll love it!
A beautiful and bubbly Marilyn Joi interviewed:
"Marilyn
Joi" was born 22 May 1945 in New Orleans, Orleans Parish, Louisiana, USA.
Her full real name is not general knowledge, though her real first name seems
to be "Mary"; on screen, she was at times also credited as Tracy
King, Tracy Ann King, T.A. King and even Anita King. She is alive and well and (unlike
us) on twitter. A true Babe of
Yesteryear, her film career was much too short and she is unjustly unknown
— which is why we here at a wasted life have decided to take one
of our typically meandering and unfocused looks at her filmography. If it's
even more meandering and unfocused than usual, well, in this was researched and written while on coronavirus
lockdown and we had more time on our hands.
As always, we
make no guarantee that anything we write is 100% correct (feel free to tell us
where we're wrong — preferably in a non-trolly tone of voice). And if we missed
a film, let us know…
"Women are like buses. Miss one, catch another."
Hammer
(1972, dir. Bruce D. Clark)
"Women are like buses. Miss one, catch another."
Hammer (Fred Williamsom)
Marilyn Joi, credited as "Tracy King", made her film debut in a minuscule but noticeable role in this lesser classic from the early years of the Golden Age of Blaxploitation, a movie that is perhaps most notable now for having truly launched the film career of Fred "The Hammer" Williamson, seen below playing with a pussy (not from the movie).
Trailer to
Hammer:
The plot to this
"pretty decent slice of gritty 70's cinema [but] not something I would
classify as an essential piece of blaxploitation cinema": "B.J.
Hammer (Williamson) is a past-his-prime former boxer working the warehouse
district of L.A. when he is fired after wiping the floor with a racist
co-worker. Word of his fighting skills reach the ears of mafia-connected boxing
promoter Big Sid (Charles Lampkin [17 Mar 1913 – 17 Apr 1989] of Five [1951 / trailer] and The Black Godfather [1974 / trailer]), who brings
Hammer into his corner under the watchful eye of legit trainer the Professor
(Mel Stewart [19 Sept 1929 – 24 Feb 2002] of The Bride of Re-Animator [1990 / trailer] and the film
version of Iceberg Slim's
Trick Baby [1972 / trailer]). Things look
great for the boxer as he works his way through a series of victorious fights
and he begins a relationship with Sid's secretary Lois (Vonetta McGee [14 Jan
1945 – 9 July 2010] of The Big Silence [1968]), but he
begins to get some blow back from the neighborhood, who accuse the fighter of
selling out to the Man. Furthermore, local cop Davis (Bernie Hamilton) is after
Sid, who is dabbling in the drug trade. While Hammer initially refuses to
believe his new employer is corrupt, his attitude changes when Sid demands he
take a dive during the next big fight. Crushed by the request, Hammer
refuses to take the dive but Sid's right-hand man Brenner, played by 70s baddie
William Smith, threatens to kill Lois. [McBastard's Mausoleum]"
The fab
soundtrack — is there even a blaxploitation film out there that has a bad
soundtrack? — is from Solomon
Burke (21 March 1936 or 1940 – 10 Oct 2010).
Solomon Burke's
Hammer:
"There isn't
much to Hammer than what you would find in your average
blaxploitation. If anything, the film pretty much goes through the motions
without too much fuss. There's the obligatory slayings, the soft-focus sex
scenes, the kitschy '70s-esque jive-talking, and the good-hearted (sometimes
bull-headed) lead. Just about every cliché regarding pimps, street kids,
hookers and hitmen is thrown into a cauldron that never really reaches a
boiling point. What the film does do successfully is present one of
blaxploitation's more charismatic figures. Williamson has charm to spare, and
his good-natured humour and easy smiles make it very clear that he wasn't
taking himself all too seriously while making this film. [Pop Matters]"
Some people,
however, think the film is pure shit. For example, KO Picture [a site since labelled "Deceptive" by Google], which seethes: "There was a real recklessness
about the entire production: Continuity errors (within the first 5 minutes!),
unintelligible dialogue, editing-via-hatchet or other blunt objects within
reach, obvious non-actors in pivotal roles, plot points dropped and never
picked up again, Fred Williamson's visible panty lines (those were some snug
slacks!). And the most bizarre part is that there was a definite inkling of 'sequel'
at the end of it all, like they felt this Hammer
would be an enduring character. One could almost argue that this was all a
set-up in order to GET to a sequel. That all the dropped plot points and the
absolute refusal to reveal who 'THE MAN' was and why he does what he does was,
in fact, intended.* But that would
be almost unimaginable. I refuse to give the filmmakers that much credit."
* This statement, needless
to say, reveals the writer as a total honky that transcends simple skin color. How the hell can anyone not know
who the Man is?
Hit Man
(1972, writ. & dir. George Armitage)
Another
blaxploitation film written and directed by a white man, although Armitage has
gone on record as having wanted Bernie Casey (8 June 1939 – 19 Sept 2017, of Cleopatra Jones [1973] and Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde [1976 / trailer]), the film's
star,* to direct and only remained
on the job when it looked like the producer, Gene Corman, would pull the plug
on the project before giving it to a first-time [Afro-American] director. Like
many blaxpoitation films of the time, Hit
Man is a retooled version of a former lily-white hit film, in this case the
British movie Get Carter (1971 / trailer)** — so both flicks, basically, are
based on the Ted Lewis crime novel, Jack's
Return Home. Marilyn Joi, now credited as "Tracy Ann-King", is
there to play Rita Biggs According to Joi, "When I auditioned for Corman,
I showed up in a mink coat with just a bikini under it! (Laughs) When I dropped
the mink coat, that was it!"
** Remade in 2000 as a Sylvester
Stallone movie (trailer).
"Actually,
Corman's trend-setting with black-oriented films goes back over ten years. At
that time he produced a motion picture called The Intruder, which dealt with
racial intolerance and injustice in the South. 'It exposed the doctrine of hate
and prejudice,' Corman says, 'but it turned out that the film was far ahead of
its time.' The then-explosive nature of the film kept The Intruder from receiving the exposure it rightfully deserved. With
the excellent response to his Cool
Breeze* this year, Corman felt encouraged to produce another film in the
now totally accepted field of black action dramas of today. Hit
Man he feels comes into the marketplace at just exactly the
right time for all audiences. [Press Release @ One-Sheet Index]"
* Cool Breeze (1972/ trailer), like Hit Man, is
a blaxploitation version of an older lily-white classic; in the case of Cool Breeze, Gene Corman retooled the
1950 classic Asphalt Jungle (trailer) into something arguably less interesting.
The plot of Hit Man, as
found at Blaxploitation.com: "Petty
crook Tyrone Tackett (Bernie Casey) attends his brother's funeral in LA to
discover that the death was suspicious. Rather than returning to his native
Oakland he starts to make his own investigations into the murder. Tackett
discovers that his niece (Candy All) had been making adult movies and begins to
follow the trail through LA's porn underworld from motel to campus to Watts
Towers and back. He encounters starlet Gozelda (Pam Grier), porn star Julius
and others before arriving at crime lord Zito (Don Diamond [4 June 1921 – 19
June 2011] of the original version of The
Toolbox Murders [1978 / trailer]) and henchman
Shag (Bob Harris of The Student Teachers
[1973, see further below]). Always alert and ready for action, he's apparently
as merciless and uncaring as those he meets. Only his lover Laural (Lisa Moore
[12 Sept 1940 – 10 Apr 1989] of Rape
Squad [1974 / trailer])
sees the real Tackett..."
Trailer to
Hit Man:
"Hit Man is George (Miami Blues [1990 / trailer]*) Armitage's blaxploitation remake of
Mike Hodges' Get Carter. While it
lacks the punch of the original, […] it's a solidly entertaining revenge
picture. It also happens to be a great vehicle for the late Bernie Casey. […] It contains more than its fair share
of sex, violence, and exploitation goodness. It takes its time unfurling its
premise, maybe a bit too much. Once it gets going, it's a rather satisfying
thriller. Casey is front and center in nearly every scene. Even though the
pacing gets a little pokey in places, his performance is so strong that you are
with him every step of the way. The supporting performances are uniformly fine.
[…] Pam Grier and Marilyn Joi [below, from the film] are around as the eye candy, although you'll wish
they had more to do. Still… if you ever wanted to see Pam Grier get eaten by a
lion… [Video Vacuum]"
* Speaking of the
excellent but totally overlooked and forgotten film Miami Blues, over at Pink Smoke, John Cribs ponders things we here at a
wasted life have, too: "There's nothing mysterious about George
Armitage, but his complete lack of prestige has always perplexed me. I spent a
better part of the 90s wondering how the hell Miami Blues didn't open to the same kind of enthusiastic reception
or at least develop the same reverential reputation as, say, Pulp Fiction. When his follow-up film Grosse Pointe Blank (1997 / trailer) was released
seven years later, it drew mixed reactions from critics and fell into the
iniquitous late 90s pit of 'Tarantino imitations' just because it featured
comedic hit men and a soundtrack made up of popular songs. And after 2004's
depressing flop The Big Bounce (2004
/ trailer), […] I
couldn't quite figure out why Armitage's track record had faltered so abruptly […]."
Armitage is a much better filmmaker, in other words, than his obscurity and
lack of film credits would indicate.
H.B. Barnum's title
track to
Hit Man:
Hit Man:
In any event:
"Bernie Casey strides purposefully through Hit Man, his flamboyant hat tilted at a rakish angle over a graying
Afro, his ex-professional-football player frame squeezed into a series of tight
trousers. If he emerges as Hit Man's
hero, it's only because his brutally efficient enforcer qualifies as marginally
less evil than the human parasites around him. […] [George Armitage] strands
Casey's grittily charismatic protagonist in some of the seamiest corners of a
Los Angeles rotting from the inside out, then watches in admiration as Casey
leaves behind a trail of bullet-riddled corpses and sexually satisfied women. […]
Armitage's thriller inhabits a shadowy realm of porn theaters and brothels, mob
palaces and dogfights. It's a hard-boiled world devoid of sentimentality or
good intentions, where everyone is motivated by the ugliest and least
egalitarian instincts. In this poisonous context, Casey's hunger for revenge
almost qualifies as noble, though his means of accomplishing his goals are
anything but. Casey gives his character a powerful internal calm and casual
authority. He's a bad man in a wicked world, but at least he has style, and in
the funky world of blaxploitation, that counts for an awful lot. […] Armitage's
tight, minimalist, thoroughly badass fusion of blaxploitation and film noir
proves that greed, lust, and the quest for revenge remain depressingly universal.
[AV Club]"
Over at Expelled Grey Matter, they grapple
with the philosophical question of whether a single but probably real scene can
keep a movie from being "one of those forgotten films that needs to be
reconsidered": "This is largely a decent action film once you get
past the beginning, which involves […] a trip to a dog fighting ring — in
which, it appears, we get to see a real dog fight, including one [dog] getting
killed and its final death throes. This movie, I take it, is not famous enough
to have sparked real outrage about that scene — or, maybe (hopefully) it was
not real. Very few times am I sickened by violence in movies, since I know it
is pretend. […] Whatever fun may be had watching a bunch of red paint splash around the screen
later on is almost completely ruined by that one scene. This is a shame
because, without it, I would be praising this movie up and down as one of those
forgotten films that needs to be reconsidered […]."
"Bernie Casey exercises his right to bear a chrome plated
Colt Super .38 automatic in this cool promo photo made for his 1972
blaxploitation flick Hit Man. We love Casey. He died [...] pretty much
unheralded [19 Sept 2017], but he appeared in a lot of fun movies [...]. He
also had the good fortune to get naked with both Pam Grier and Claudia
Jennings. The Jennings scene is flat amazing, but the Grier scene, which is
actually from Hit Man, is hilarious. As Grier climbs atop him and presses her
naked body full length onto his the expression on his face reads something
like: 'Oh. My. Freaking. God.' That's probably the only time in his life he
wasn't 100% cool. [Pulp
International]"
Wonder Women
(1973, dir.
Robert Vincent O'Neil)
A.k.a. The Deadly and the Beautiful.
Trailer to
Wonder
Women:
Aside from the
fact that we here at a wasted life have never understood
what everyone has against Ross Hagen movies — who doesn't enjoy disasterpieces
like The Mini-Skirt Mob (1968 / trailer) or Merchants of Death (1989 / full movie) or all his
Fred Olan Ray flicks? — or how anyone can even like sports films, Clevenger
& Zollinger can't see the forest for the trees: "Wonder Women is a rollicking B-movie and a perfect
example of 1970s grindhouse cinema. [Criminal Element]" Indeed, the
movie is some fabulous trash and finely aged kitsch, truly of the memorable
kind that simply don't get made anymore. (Instead, nowadays we're stuck with
Michael Bay movies — a sad culturally state, to say the least, fitting to the
sad state of the so-called American democracy.)
Director Robert Vincent O'Neil adapted the script to this fun
slice of Philippine-shot grindhouse trash from a screenplay written by Lou
Whitehill, probably the very Whitehill script that was used more or less at the
same time for the oddly better-known (?) slice of Philippine-shot grindhouse
trash, The Thirsty Dead (1974 / full movie), which
replaces jai-alai players with women. O'Neil, who (sadly) has remained inactive
for decades now, had a brief productive flurry of about 15 years during which
he wrote and/or directed some fun trash, most famously The Psycho Lover (1970 / trailer),
Blood Mania (1970 / trailer), Angel (1984) & Angel 2 (1985) — the latter two
both with Susan
Tyrrell — and Don
Sharp's What Waits Below (1984).
(Oh, where did you go, Joe?)
Though an
American production, most of Wonder
Women was shot in the Philippines — but not the scenes of the uncredited
Marilyn Joi [seen above from the movie], who revealed "My scenes were shot in an Asian restaurant here
in L.A. Those were just some pick-ups they had to do — I don't know if they
forgot to do them in the Philippines or what, but they asked me to do them and
I said, 'OK!' It was just a tiny thing."
Tiny thing is right: basically,
they dressed Joi in similar outfits to the only Afro American of the film's
gang of "wonder women", Maggie (Shirley Washington of Dead
End Dolls [1972] and Darktown
Strutters [1975 / see Dick Miller, Part IV]), seen above from the movie, and then
dropped Joi into the movie. (You see both Marilyn and Shirley in the trailer,
by the way — but more of Marilyn.)
Title track to Wonder
Women,
sung by Annette Thomas:
"[...] Wonder Women is essentially a sixties
Eurospy movie transplanted to another continent and another decade, the 1970s.
It has all the usual sixties Eurospy hallmarks: evil Oriental villain with an
island full of beautiful, deadly, scantily-clad babes (why is it always a babe
army?), weird science (unusual organ transplants), cool chases in exotic but
low-budget locations, an 'escape from the island as the base blows up' finale
and, most importantly, a supremely obnoxious hero. [Double O Section]"
The film ends in a manner that indicates a planned sequel never happened.
The Student Teachers
(1973, dir. Jonathan Kaplan)
Marilyn Joi,
credited as Tracy Ann King, has a tiny role in this film doing her specialty at
the time: topless dancing. As The Student Teachers also features the dearly departed cult character actor Dick Miller
playing Coach Harris, we took a look at the film in R.I.P.: Dick Miller, Part III (1968-74),
where we never made mention of Joi. We wrote:
A.k.a. College
Coeds and Self-Service Schoolgirls (the poster below might be to the
movie; neither name on it seem to be real — or at least neither "star" ever made another movie).*
* Since we wrote the
original entry in May 2019, we've come to believe that Self-Service Schoolgirls might actually be another title for Erwin
C. Dietrich's German exploiter Mädchen,
die sich selbst bedienen (1975), a.k.a. Self-Service Girls. Of course, there's no saying that the two different movies
might simply share a same a.k.a. title.
Kaplan's second
directorial project, once again a Corman production — a Julie Corman production,
that is. It would seem that after nurse T&A, the time seemed right for
teacher T&A. Dick Miller has a relatively major/important part as "the penultimate dumb" and chauvinist Coach Harris. (Major
spoiler: He turns out to be the rapist!)
As Kaplan explains
in Chris Nashawaty's Crab Monsters, Teenage Cavemen, and Candy Stripe
Nurses: Roger Corman: King of the B Movies "After Night Call Nurses
was done, I didn't talk to him [Corman] again for a while. Then Julie
[Corman] called me and said, 'We're a big hit in Tallahassee! Roger wants you
to come out and make the same movie, but with teachers instead of nurses.'
That's how I got The Student Teachers."
The
Student Teachers:
As an
exploitation franchise, teacherploitation didn't last all that long: the Corman
Mafia only made one unofficial "sequel", Summer School Teachers
(1974 / trailer), and
aside from the later cheapie The Teacher (1974 / trailer) and the far
cheaper and more violent exploiter Trip with the Teacher (1975 / trailer, with Zalman King)
— the latter a semi-remake of the even cheaper and sleazier Harry
Novak production, Convicts Women a.k.a. Bust Out (1970, with Candy Samples)
that was later semi-remade as Delinquent School Girls (1975 / trailer, with Roberta Pedon) — and the Italo sex farces Substitute Teacher aka La
supplente (1975, poster below) and School Days
a.k.a. La professoressa di scienze naturali (1976 / full
movie in Italian), we
can't really remember that many female teacher-centric sexploiters out there.
Trailer to
The
Hot Box:
In any event, the shot of Marilyn Joi
below — found obviously enough at Mr. Skin — is of her stripping in the background of The Student Teachers.
(1973, dir. Jack
Hill)
Truth be told,
you can't call yourself a true fan of blaxploitation — no, of exploitation film
in general — if you have not yet gotten around to screening this fabulous trash
masterpiece. Hit the title above to go to our extremely verbose and long-winded
"review" (Spoilers!) of Jack Hill's classic, which we wrote way back
in 2008.
Trailer to
Coffy:
In our review of
Coffy we mention Marilyn Joi not
even once — though she is found in an image we used for the blog entry (the three-gal stable photo seen
further below) and does indeed stand out amidst the rather generic white babes in
her brief, un-credited appearance*
— we just could never take our eyes off the Queen of Blaxploitation, Pam Grier,
in her first starring role, who just walks away with this perfectly tailored
slice of grindhouse fabulousness, a film that fails in being 100% perfect only
due to its final scenes, which reduces the righteous, revenge-driven,
ass-kicking Amazon to a pissed-off cuckqueen.
* And also loses her top in the catfight, revealing a typically 70s distaste for wearing a bra.
But to return to Marilyn Joi [above]: Pulp
International writes, "[…] Here she is again, chilled out,
sporting an afro, and looking like she has something naughty on her mind. The
shot was made in 1973 as a promo for the blaxploitation flick Coffy.
The fact that the photo exists is a bit is unusual due to the fact her role in
the film was so brief she never got screen credit. She was one of the prosties
in the pimp King George's stable, competition for an infiltrating Pam Grier,
who was on a revenge mission. Joi probably got fifteen seconds of screen time,
which may be why this photo is often misattributed. It's Joi, though." As
proof of her presence, below you find a photo of King George's stable, she
being the only non-honky of the bunch.
* And also loses her top in the catfight, revealing a typically 70s distaste for wearing a bra.
* The first (and only) husband of everyone's favorite photographer, Diane Arbus. (Fur, anyone?)
Detroit
9000
(1973, dir. Arthur Marks)
"In the
underrated style of so many so-called grindhouse and exploitation films, Detroit 9000 has a lot more on its mind than most
mainstream film. Even today, I think you'd have a hard time finding a
big-budget, studio production that would be willing to take as honest a view of
race relations as Detroit
9000 does. Beneath all of the exploitation trapping, there lies
a film that was actually saying something about the way life was being lived in
1973 and which still has a lot to say about how life is being lived today in
2015. [Lisa
Marie Bowman @ Through A Shattered Lens]"
Marilyn Joi,
once again un-credited, shakes her booty as a "dancing hooker in
whorehouse", assumedly the house-that-isn't-a-home in which Vonetta
McGee's character, Roby Harris, works. Shot on location, Detroit 9000 has gained some attention in recent years as one of
the Tarantino's favorite films and can even be seen briefly on a TV running on
the background in Jackie Brown (1997
/ trailer), a film
from the days when the director didn't pointlessly rewrite history in his
movies. The title comes, supposedly, from a since phased-out Detroit police
radio code, "9000", for "officer down".
Trailer to
Detroit
9000:
In her book If You Like Quentin Tarantino…,
Katherine Rife takes a look at this flick, yet another of the many exploitation
flicks of yore that the Great T helped rediscover (he re-released it on VHS/DVD
via Rolling
Thunder Pictures,
his short-lived film distribution company) and writes: "Detroit 9000 […] is a scrappy cop movie
full of naïve charm and funky blaxploitation attitude, and baby, there ain't
nothing wrong with that. […] It's the spirit of the thing that counts, and the
spirit of Detroit 9000 is the kind
of thing that makes you happy to be alive. The crème de la crème of Detroit's
black elite has come to fete congressman Aubrey Hale Clayton (Rudy Challenger
of Sheba, Baby [1975 / trailer]), but before
the ink on the checks can dry, the party is interrupted by stick-up men in
black ski masks. […] As you might expect, the wealthy and influential people
are quite upset about the incident, so the cops put two detectives on the case:
world-weary white detective Danny Bassett (Alex Roco [29 Feb 1936 – 18 July
2015], who later costarred in The
Godfather [1972 / trailer,
not to mention Return to Horror High (1987)]) and
suave, intelligent black cop*
Sergeant Jesse Williams (Hari Rhodes [10 Apr 1932 – 15 Jan 1992]). They're
polar opposites: Danny has been ground down into a cynical, hunched-over little
man by years of watching his peers get promoted while he's busting skulls on
the streets, and Jesse is not only a perfect physical specimen ("whoever
doesn't believe black is beautiful never saw my big hunk's man meat," as
his girlfriend puts it), he's well educated, charismatic, honorable and clean
cut — he was an all-American jock in high school, for Christ's sake. It's kinda
like Lethal Weapon (1987 / trailer) with more
loaded racial rhetoric, and the racial element is loaded with rocket fuel in
this movie. Detroit 9000 goes there,
over and over again, from throwaway lines such as "No wonder the honkies
think we're oversexed" to vicious, bigoted rant from a feeble old lady in
a wheelchair, but it saves special vitriol for its portrayal of the deeply hypocritical
nature of institutional racism. […]"
* "Intelligent",
like, needs to be pointed out 'cause you just can't assume a suave black cop
also has brains, can you? Like, because the world-weary Danny Bassett isn't described as "intelligent", we automatically assume/know the white guy is an idiot, right?
From Luchi De Jesus's soundtrack to
Detroit 9000 — Newness in Rhythm [Throw A Punch At Me]:
Director Arthur
Marks (2 Aug 1927 – 13 Nov 2019) is a man that needs some long overdue
appreciation, if you ask us. True, he is remembered by some as yet another
white man who made some (superior but underappreciated) blaxploitation flicks —
aside from this one he did Bucktown
(1975 / trailer), Friday Foster (1975 / trailer), J.D.'s Revenge (1976 / trailer) and The Monkey Hustle (1976 / trailer) — but he also
made fun trash like The Roommates
(1973, with the Great
Uschi) and Bonnie's Kids (1972 /
trailer). Cutting his
teeth doing un-credited reshoots for the masterpiece that is Orson Welles's Lady from Shanghai (1947 / trailer), Marks went on
to supply the story to one of the nastiest exploitation films out there, The Centerfold Girls (1974 / trailer, starring Andrew
"Horse" Prine, seen below not from the movie), producing or
distributing fun trash as Linda Lovelace
for President (1975 / trailer),
William Girdler's The Zebra Killer (1974 / trailer), and even acted in
an Italo soft-core porn musical version of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, Eros
Perversion (1979 / some
music) — and more! The guy was talented!
Of course,
Orville H. Hampton (21 May 1917 – 8 Aug, 1997), the guy who supplied the
screenplay for Detroit 9000, was
also no slouch. He received an Academy Award nomination with co-writer Raphael
Hayes (2 Mar 1915 – 14 Aug 2010) for his story and screenplay to One Potato, Two Potato (1964 / final scene), based on
the true story leading up to the Loving vs. Virginia
case, but prior and after he lent his writing talents to such fondly remembered
fodder as The Alligator People (1959
/ trailer), The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake (1959
/ trailer), Riot on Sunset Strip (1967 / trailer) and The Snake Woman (1961 / trailer).
Trash Film Guru also thinks that
Arthur Marks and the film, which he calls "the real deal", needs more
respect: "Recently I more or less politely begged for a long-overdue
reappraisal of [Marks's] fine Pam Grier flick Friday Foster, and today I'm here to spread the good word about
what is undoubtedly his absolute masterwork (a term regular readers of this
site will know I don't toss around loosely), 1973's Detroit 9000. […] What sets Detroit 9000 apart from much of the other blaxploitation fare of
the time (a category which this flick may or may not actually fall into — it's
certainly debatable) is the intelligence and extra level of humanity and
characterization that Marks, his fine cast, and screenwriter Orville H. Hampton
inject into the proceedings. […] Both leads are deeply flawed, all-too-human
individuals, and Rocco and Rhodes turn in superb performances that bring out
all the nuances in the script. This is an intelligent story delivered by
intelligent performers with a firm grasp on the surprising subtlety inherent in
the material. […] Marks, absolute master of pacing that he is, keeps things
moving along at a very nice clip here, and there's never a dull moment — the
action scenes are explosive and fraught with drama and tension, but even the
quieter moments aren't so quiet as every word in every off-handed exchange does
at least something to propel the main narrative forward. This is a very
economical film (both metaphorically and, I'm sure, literally), and the always-resourceful
Arthur doesn't waste a frame. […] Buckle up, folks — the road starts out bumpy
and it only gets bumpier. All of which is fun, of course, but it means you've
gotta keep your wits about you, as well — and trust me, when the shit hits the
fan at the end, you'll be glad you did. […] This flick is a terrific piece of
crime drama from start to finish, but it demands — and takes — its pound
of flesh along the way. Get your ass off my blog and watch it right now."
Three minutes of Marks talking:
After all the
praise above, a word to the contrary from Every 70s Movie: "Rhodes […]
was a man of letters off-screen and, accordingly, brought eloquence and poise
to his acting. Therefore, it's a shame that Detroit 9000 give Rhodes one of his only leading roles, since he's
got nothing to do here but strive to retain his dignity while running through
gutted urban locations and/or spewing bland dialogue. Rocco, a versatile
character actor […], provides a totally different flavor of authenticity, although
he, too, is handicapped by an underwritten characterization. Among the
supporting cast, Scatman Crothers does some energetic speechifying as a
preacher; Vonetta McGee classes up a trite hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold role;
and Herbert Jefferson Jr., later a regular on the original Battlestar Galactica (1978-79 / movie trailer) series,
shows up in full pimp regalia. The problem is that everyone involved in Detroit 9000, including second-rate
blaxploitation director Arthur Marks, did better work elsewhere — so why this
mediocre flick lingered in Tarantino's memory is a mystery."
Also used in the movie —
Honey Cone singing Sunday Morning People:
More addendum stuff: [Spoilers.] Prior to Tarantino 's re-release
of the flick, oddly enough Detroit 9000
was also released by that cheap purveyor of public domain movies and stuff no
one else would ever dream
of releasing, EastwestDVD. Their website is currently offline, so perhaps
they were a bit lax on the definition of public domain. Vonetta's character
gets shot in the back by the bad guys and dies, as do most
hookers with hearts of gold. Somewhere along the way, probably in Great
Britain, Detroit 9000 got released on a double bill with the second-rate
French film Popsy Pop (1971), also
known as The 21 Carat Snatch, a
movie noted primarily for having been scripted by Henri "Papillon" Charrière,
which is why the movie is also aka The
Butterfly Affair. It's a movie that "will probably only appeal to a
small audience of movie lovers […] who enjoy unusual caper films shot in exotic
locations with great soundtracks. If you’re looking for a solid well acted film
with a coherent script, you should probably look elsewhere since Popsy Pop
has very little to hold it together besides Claudia Cardinale's fabulous
wardrobe and wacky wigs. [Cinebeats]"
Tender Loving Care
(1973, writ. & dir. Don Edmonds)
* Depending on which source you look at, it would mean the movie has
been cut of about 6 minutes.
As might
possibly be expected with a blog focusing on the kind of films we do, the name
of Don Edmonds pops up again and again and again — for example, in our Babes of Yesteryear look at Uschi Part V-Pt. II, Part VI and Part XVIII, our Haji and Charles
Napier RIP career reviews, Part II of our Dick Miller tribute,
and Part
IX of our look at Harry Novak's career… and, who knows, maybe elsewhere as
well. In Uschi, Part V-Pt. II, we mentioned the
following about him when writing of his sex flick, Wild
Honey: "Wild Honey is the
directorial début of Don Edmonds (1 Sept 1937 – 30 May 2009), former and occasional
actor (for example: Beach Ball [1965
/ trailer] and Wild Wild Winter [1966]) who, after
this film, still did an occasional acting job (Home Sweet Home [1981 / trailer], for example)
but concentrated mostly on writing, producing and directing — including some
true sleaze classics: Ilsa: She Wolf of
the SS (1975 / trailer)
& Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil
Sheiks (1976 / trailer).
Other films we find of note that he touched: Skeeter (1993 / trailer, with Charles
Napier), True Romance (1993 / trailer), Beyond Evil (1980 / trailer), Saddle Tramp Women (1972), […] the Charles
Napier vehicle, The Night Stalker
(1987)."
Although Tender Loving Care is not generally
lumped together with Roger Corman's other nurse movies — The Student Nurses (1970 / trailer), Private Duty Nurses (1971, see Dick
Miller Part III), Night Call
Nurses (1973, see Dick
Miller, Part III), The Young Nurses (1973, see Dick
Miller, Part III) and Candy
Stripe Nurses (1974, see Dick
Miller, Part IV) — it was coproduced by Corman (though he probably got
the credit only 'cause he took over the movie's distribution). But instead of
the normal Corman-factory format of four females (including one minority
female), Edmonds concentrates his films on a female triad (including one
minority female). Here, in what is Marilyn Joi's first major role outside of an
Al Adamson flick, she fills the role of the mandatory minority female character.
As one of the three main babes, she even makes onto the poster, credited as
"Anita King". That's her, of course, in the photo below at the right.
The American Film Institute has an extremely detailed synopsis
about a film in which "nurses dole out more care than called for in their
job descriptions [Kristie Hassen@ All Movie]", of which we
present only the first couple of lines: "Nurse Karen Jordan (Donna Young)
arrives at an airport in Los Angeles, CA, to take her new job at West Ridge
Hospital. Meanwhile, African American boxer Jackie Carter (John Daniels of Flesh-Eating Mothers [1988]) goes
into cardiac arrest after being punched in the chest, and is rushed into West
Ridge's emergency room. Dr. Ben Traynor (Michael Asher), assisted by intern Dr.
David Aaron (Tony Mumolo) and African American nurse Lynn Pierce (Joi), revive
him. Afterward, Lynn meets Karen and agrees to let her move into the apartment
she shares with Tracy Dean (Lauren Simon), another nurse. Later, at the
instigation of her boyfriend David, Tracy steals a bottle containing a
stimulant at the nurses' station pharmacy. An orderly, William Simpson (George
'Buck' Flower), sees the theft, but says nothing. […]" What then follows
is a T&A tale of sex and drugs and pimps and gangsters and motocross racing
and romance and dune buggies and group sex and blackmail and murder and both
happy and tragic endings — more or less everything one expects and wants in an
exploitation movie.
Over at Cult Collectables, they ask Don
Edmunds about the movie, and he says: "[…] That was back in the day when
there weren't a lot of Blacks in pictures, and you didn't refer to them as
Blacks. And if you saw Tender Loving
Care, there's no reference to him being Black. $25,000 in eight days, we made
that picture for. We didn't have nothing. We didn't have any permits
on that film. We would just steal anything. When you're making a picture
in eight days, you don't have time to breathe. You don't have time to sit down
at dinner. You don't have to sleep. You just make a picture. You drive down
sleeping in cars, you're driving to the next set. I don't care who you talk to,
if they can tell you they had this leisurely time making an eight-day picture,
I'm telling you, they're liars. They don't. I couldn't take time to take a
piss. Corman picked up Tender Loving
Care, and he was making other movies in the nurse genre. Again, I was out
of work, standing around writing scripts, and it was one I had in my trunk. I'd
written the picture, and nobody was making it. So I ran into this woman named
Chako van Leeuwen, who went on to do Piranha (1978),
and I got a call one day from her and she says she'll meet me at this drive-in
restaurant, not even an office, and I said, 'Yeah, right.' I had been eating
Top Ramen, so I thought, at least I'll get a chicken sandwich out of this
thing. So I went down to this restaurant, and I met this lady, and she said
that she wanted to make a movie. I pulled out a bunch of scripts that I had
written that nobody had ever made, and I said 'Here, read these.' She picked
out Tender Loving Care, and she
said, 'I've got thirty-five thousand dollars.' I said that's not quite enough,
but took it. I'm just a kid around Hollywood, and I haven't got gas for the car
and I thought hey, it's another movie, let's go make that. That's the way my
whole career's been. I've never had that luxury of going oh, I'll only make
this or I'll only make that. I look back on it and maybe wish I had, but it's a
waste of time. I made what I made, and there it is."
The dude at Toxic Fletch is currently the only
person who's seen the flick and thought it worth writing about: "[…] Tender Loving Care is a short movie at
72 minutes,* and despite that it
does have an occasional drag, but not too many and the skin content is much
better than the more successful nurses drive-in movies of the 70s that Julie
Corman produced. Of what I have seen of the Corman-produced nurses movies, Tender Loving Care has a stronger story
that moves along with few glitches. What glitches there are is in the
department of acting capability and silliness in some characters. Of the three
primary actresses, of course that would be the nurses, Donna Young's
performance, even though she is the top billed of this movie (as Donna
Desmond), is the weakest. […] Marilyn Joi […] gives an expected good
performance that is above the means of this film. Lauren Simon also turns in a
good performance as the put-upon girlfriend of a drug-addicted doctor […]. And
of course George Buck Flower delivers a good performance as a lecherous
hospital orderly, as does John Daniels as a troubled young man facing the end
of his boxing career."
Used in the movie —
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