Friday Foster (1975)

While it has violence and nudity, there’s something lighter and frothier about the blaxploitation film, Friday Foster (1975); it’s almost ready to be a crowd-pleasing TV movie pilot, maybe because the film is being based on a comic strip (comparable to Modesty Blaise in terms of syndicated newspaper comics). A vehicle for the great Pam Grier who proves her star power here as the title character, a photo journalist for Glance magazine who has ties to the fashion industry, and is assigned to cover the airport arrival of Blake Tarr (Thalmus Rasulala), a black billionaire Howard Hughes type. When there’s an assassination attempt (one of the shooters is a young Carl Weathers) and Friday gets the scoop, the stage is set for her to be an amateur sleuth that continually gets into The Perils Of Pauline type sticky situations; this gives Grier the chance to alternate between earnest sincerity and charming goofiness. There’s a murder mystery and a political conspiracy, and multiple location shots of Washington DC, and a whispered figure at the centre of it all, the “Black Widow”. It’s also refreshing to see Yaphet Kotto in a wise-cracking hero role, playing Colt Hawkins, a private detective on the case and a foil to Friday; their partnership feels like a nice spin on The Thin Man or Bogey-and-Bacall Hollywood detective dynamic. There’s a great cast including Godfrey Cambridge, Julius Harris, Scatman Crothers, and Eartha Kitt as fashion designer Madame Rena, delightfully tearing through their scenes without even a glance in the rear-view mirror. There’s a sunny neo-noir vibe and screwball comedy throwback gags and patter, just with more casual sex. Music by Luchi De Jesus who also contributes the very catchy title track. As with most 1970s blaxploitation, this was directed by a white guy, Arthur Marks, who also made other classics of the genre that I haven’t seen like Detroit 9000, Bucktown and JD’s Revenge. Streamed on Criterion Channel but also available to rent on iTunes. Recommended.

Trouble Man (1972)

What brought me to watching Trouble Man (1972) I’m sure is the same thing that draws in a lot of people and possibly has had more cultural impact than the film itself: Marvin Gaye’s soundtrack. The song ‘Trouble Man’ is a brilliant piece of music, and much like the ‘Theme To Shaft,’ it smoothly and soulfully introduces the title character and the film’s coolness. Cool is verbalised as a strong quality to have in Trouble Man, as in keeping one’s “cool”, which Mr. T (Robert Hooks) is the master of. Watching him jump into his car, drive down the Los Angeles freeways, and eventually lay out a new suit on his bed reminded me of American Gigolo, and it’s a similar cocktail of music, fashion and lifestyle, just a decade earlier. T is a fixer, a private detective and ‘guardian of the streets’ who keeps an office in a Pool Hall where he’s not defending his title as a legendary pool player. I loved this set up and the establishment of the world T moves through. There’s a pulp dimension to this LA-based post-Shaft blaxploitation produced by 20th Century Fox and directed by Hogan’s Heroes actor, Ivan Dixon. An actor I was not familiar with and was surprised he didn’t have the same type of career as Fred Williamson, Robert Hooks is very commanding and rock solid as the ‘Trouble Man,’ who is asked to help put a stop to thieves robbing the craps games organised by Chalky Price (Paul Winfield) and Pete Cockrell (Ralph Waite). Though all is not what it appears, and T finds himself boxed into a frame, adding a neo-noir quality to someone who doesn’t mind breaking the law, provided its for the right reasons. Winfield was also a stand-out, a completely underrated actor and screen presence, who gives you what you want, particularly when T starts to turn the tables and Chalky’s assuredness crumbles. A very masculine movie without much for the women characters to do but be sweet-talked by T, I still found it entertaining, particularly the fusion of Gaye’s music with Hooks’ presence, such as when he stalks around a guarded apartment complex to the slowly building instrumental, ‘T Stands For Trouble’. Streamed on the Criterion Channel. Recommended.

Truck Turner (1974)

Truck Turner (1974) is as supercharged and rollicking a film as the pumping score provided by star Isaac Hayes. Not just content with winning the Oscar for the ‘Theme to Shaft’ and establishing the sound of what would be termed Blaxploitation, Hayes decided to try acting as well. As the title character, a former football player turned bounty hunter, Hayes is a little bit rough around the edges as a performer, which works completely for this bleary, rugged character, who wakes up in an apartment strewn with fast food detritus and a cat that urinates on his shirt. Brandishing a huge revolver and exchanging in crude banter with his partner, Jerry (Alan Weeks), this is also a rough movie in terms of its humour and violence, so won’t be for all tastes. Yet I found it undeniably entertaining with how over-the-top the movie becomes, incorporating neo-noir and western genre motifs into its spin on the super-cop movie. For a 90 minute movie, it structurally keeps changing things up and escalating at every half hour mark, beginning as a laidback LA noir hang-out with these two dudes driving across town, chasing down delinquent criminals, before running afoul of a vengeful madame Dorinda (Nichelle Nichols, yes, from Star Trek) and the calculating and cold pimp Harvard Blue (Yaphet Kotto). Caught up inadvertently in the pimp wars, the movie becomes a comic-book as nefarious villains join forces to take out this super-hero and climaxes in a bloody hospital shoot-out with echoes of slow-motion Peckinpahesque brutality. Directed by Jonathan Kaplan (Over The Edge), Truck Turner features great LA locations and street shooting with a great supporting cast including Dick Miller, Sebastian Shaw, Scatman Crothers and Charles Cypher. Nichols and Kotto are also brilliant in their respective roles, adding so much to the proceedings with their respective strengths. And then that’s Isaac Hayes score, which was an immediate post-movie purchase from its thundering title tune to its summer vibe instrumentals to a seductive croon that Hayes amazingly sings over a sequence of him in a romantic scene with his ex-con lady Annie (Annazette Chase). Streamed from the Criterion Channel but available on iTunes in Australia. Recommended.

Across 110th Street (1972)

Jackie Brown is one of my all time favourite soundtracks and I always wanted to watch the movie where it took its opening/closing theme, ‘Across 110th Street’ by Bobby Womack. I was a little surprised to find that the melancholic, orchestral sweep of the song I know was not used in the title credit sequence of Across 110th Street (1972), rather a faster, funkier, percussive version is featured. Produced by star Anthony Quinn, based on the novel by Wally Ferris, and directed by Barry Shear, the film works in the Blaxploitation genre, and is principally made by white men about the racial divide in New York between Central Park and Harlem. Yet faster, more mobile cameras were used in the filming and it was shot in location, allowing for a greater sense of authenticity, which is carried over in the wider focus of a large cast of characters. Even though our protagonists are Quinn as the older, jaded Italian cop who has worked Harlem for decades and the younger, college educated black cop played by Yaphet Kotto, the film casts a wider net in the fall-out of a stick-up job in Harlem where money was ripped off from the Italian mob. We spend time with the police investigation, and with the mobster (Tony Franciosa) out to reclaim the money and punish the robbers, but also the black gangsters helping the pursuit led by Doc Johnson (Richard Ward), and the three neighbourhood stick-up men (Paul Benjamin, Antonio Fargas, Ed Bernard), all across a couple of hot, muggy nights. While no doubt influenced by In The Heat Of The Night, the film portrays a city and an overall system, as well as leaving no easy answers or moves for solidarity in its resolution. There’s ugly, brutal violence and cynical turns in its narrative. Quinn and Kotto are good, but it’s the desperation of the thieves and their associates that provide the most affecting, memorable moments (especially Paul Benjamin’s performance who would later work with Spike Lee in films like Do The Right Thing). Score by Bobby Womack and JJ Johnson. Available to stream on Stan; can also rent/buy on iTunes. Recommended.