The Final Comedown (1972)
Rating: B-
Dir: Oscar Williams
Star: Billy Dee Williams, D’Urville Martin, Celia Kaye, Raymond St. Jacques
It’s impossible to see how such an incendiary piece of work could be made today – how times do change. Only eight years after this 1972 rant, Williams took the white man’s money to play Lando Calrissian. So much for revolution, eh, Billy? And this is such an angry movie. Told almost entirely in flashback, he plays black radical Johnny Johnson, who is shot by the cops. While clutching his stomach in an alley, he recalls the sorry tale of events that led to his current situation. These, basically, can be summed up as “white people suck”. There’s almost no benign, or neutral, Caucasians in the film: even the ones supporting Johnson are all vacillating, bleating cretins. But most are just unabashed racists. Witness this exchange between two (white, naturally) cops: “Don’t shoot him – he’s a doctor!” “Well, he’s still a nigger.” Bang.
There’s no denying the righteous indignation here, and there’s equally no denying the sledgehammer approach also on view. As a hero, Johnson can barely stand because of the F-sized chip on his shoulder – far be it from me to point out that he doesn’t appear to, oh, have a job or anything. Guess not bothering to work is his way of getting compensated for slavery. Still, there are effective moments, such as the opening, which cross-cuts police brutality with groups of black people reciting the Declaration of Independence, and by the end of it, I was ready to storm Beverly Hills and kill whitey. Given I’m so pale, I put “transparent” on forms when asked for skin color, that’s not a bad achievement.
Mean Johnny Barrows (1975)
Rating: D+
Dir: Fred Williamson
Star: Fred Williamson, Stuart Whitman, Anthony Caruso, Jenny Sherman
There’s something of First Blood here: Vietnam vet Johnny Barrows (Williamson) comes home to find society not exactly welcoming him with open arms. He initially resists the offers of mobster Mario Racconi (Whitman) to work for him, but after Racconi is gunned down and his associate Nancy (Sherman) apparently raped, Johnny goes on the warpath against the rival Da Vinci family. It’s an odd crossover between a Mafia film and blaxploitation, with Williamson’s the only significant black role. The inter-racial romance hinted at between Johnny and Nancy is definitely ahead of its time, but this angle is given so little time to grow, it seems badly forced when it actually is required to become significant to the plot.
Though that said, Nancy is involved in the film’s best moments – one plot twist we didn’t see coming, and a totally berserk ending, which must be seen to be believed. It’s one of those “WtF?” moments: the only logical explanation we could come up with, pretty much turns the entire film upside-down. This was Williamson’s directoral debut, and is far too sluggish, with excessive footage of the hero strolling around: funky soundtrack or not, how many scenes of Barrows not finding a job do we need? Roddy McDowell and Elliott Gould turn up in minor roles, the former doing an occasionally very wobbly job of suppressing his British accent. Despite occasionally interesting aspects (Williamson takes the two-handed approach to shooting, ten years before Woo – and with shotguns!), this is largely a snoozer.
Mean Johnny Barrows (1975)
Rating: D+
Dir: Fred Williamson
Star: Fred Williamson, Stuart Whitman, Anthony Caruso, Jenny Sherman
There’s something of First Blood here: Vietnam vet Johnny Barrows (Williamson) comes home to find society not exactly welcoming him with open arms. He initially resists the offers of mobster Mario Racconi (Whitman) to work for him, but after Racconi is gunned down and his associate Nancy (Sherman) apparently raped, Johnny goes on the warpath against the rival Da Vinci family. It’s an odd crossover between a Mafia film and blaxploitation, with Williamson’s the only significant black role. The inter-racial romance hinted at between Johnny and Nancy is definitely ahead of its time, but this angle is given so little time to grow, it seems badly forced when it actually is required to become significant to the plot.
Though that said, Nancy is involved in the film’s best moments – one plot twist we didn’t see coming, and a totally berserk ending, which must be seen to be believed. It’s one of those “WtF?” moments: the only logical explanation we could come up with, pretty much turns the entire film upside-down. This was Williamson’s directoral debut, and is far too sluggish, with excessive footage of the hero strolling around: funky soundtrack or not, how many scenes of Barrows not finding a job do we need? Roddy McDowell and Elliott Gould turn up in minor roles, the former doing an occasionally very wobbly job of suppressing his British accent. Despite occasionally interesting aspects (Williamson takes the two-handed approach to shooting, ten years before Woo – and with shotguns!), this is largely a snoozer.
Velvet Smooth (1976)
Rating: C-
Dir: Michael Fink
Star: Johnnie Hill, Owen Watson, Frank Ruiz, Emerson Boozer
Let’s be perfectly clear about this: at least one, possibly more, of the points awarded to this movie only apply if you, like us, are connoisseurs of the trash aesthetic. If you delight in bad acting, poor action and technical ineptness, this is for you. Otherwise…consider yourself warned. Not to be confused with Jeannie TNT Jackson Bell, this was Johnnie Hill’s only film – and when you’ve seen it, you’ll understand why. She plays Velvet, a private investigator brought in, along with her two female sidekicks (also adept in martial arts, even if we are redefining the word “adept” here), when someone starts encroaching on a crime lord’s territory. Who is behind this? And who is behind them?
From a story point of view, it’s actually not too bad, with a bunch of twists that keep things interesting. In every other way, however, it plunges into the Marianas trench of quality; witness, in particular, the boom-mike, beginning at 27:47 minutes in, which gets screen time that most actresses would kill for. The fight sequences are woeful; half are shot from such long range, you can barely see what’s going on, and the rest…well, when you see them, you’ll know why the makers opted for the long-range technique. The foley work is especially inadequate, in particular, the sound of a drum that accompanies every punch to flesh. On at least two occasions, we had to rewind the DVD repeatedly, because we literally didn’t believe what we were seeing – and not in a “Michelle Yeoh, train, bike, Supercop” way.
I guess it’s inevitable that even such a shallow genre as blaxploitation would be a target for cheap knock-offs, made by the talentless. About the only point of vague interest is a guest slot for the wonderfully-named Emerson Boozer, 2-time Pro Bowl running back for the Jets. It’s clear why his acting career didn’t take off, and in general, you wonder how such shoddy work could ever have been considered adequate. The old saw – this movie wasn’t released, it escaped – comes to mind. I think it’d have been better if Velvet Smooth had been held in Alcatraz.
[This review originally appeared on GirlsWithGuns.org]