Black babe Trina Parks will always have a place in movie history - and in my heart - for her role as Thumper in one of the most memorable scenes of "Diamonds Are Forever", where she and Bambi team up against James Bond. Before seeing "Darktown Strutters", I was hoping for an action flick along the lines of "Cleopatra Jones", but this film is more of a (literally) dopey / surreal spoof, with bright colors, outrageous props and outfits, sped-up slapstick, out-of-nowhere musical numbers, and a loony sci-fi plot involving cloning. The main problems are two: 1) It's not funny enough, 2) The lunacy cannot sustain this movie even for just 81 minutes. Still, its audacity makes it worth a look, and the women that comprise the title gang are all beautiful. (**)
15 Reviews
a cartoon come to life
Katy-1327 April 1999
"Darktown strutters" uses the most elaborate, colorful, and huge props and sets like the interior of the "pot-sicle" freezer complete with an igloo. The costumes are some of the most outlandish in the blaxploitation genre. The biker women wear rhinestoned pink and bright yellow jumpsuits and feather head dresses. The comedy is very basic slapstick which relies a lot on the props and action (like kung-fu moves, pies in the face and other uninteresting activities) rather than interesting dialogue or inventive action. Its overall "weirdness" was so obviously trying to be weird that it became sort of routine.
Not the Holy Grail
JohnSeal18 January 2010
Warning: Spoilers
After many years of wanting to see this film, opportunity finally knocked when TCM aired it on December 18 2009. Did Christmas come early? Sadly, no, as Darktown Strutters is just a dreadful mess. There are some good elements here, from the music to the custom motor trikes, but it all adds up to very little. At best, serial vet William Witney directs the film as if it's a television situation comedy, but his efforts (such as they are) are consistently undermined by the uncharacteristically awful editing of Morton Tubor. Filled with jump cuts and unintentional visual non sequiturs, Darktown Strutters is also burdened with an incoherent screenplay from George Armitage. Even the presence of familiar faces like Sam Laws, Dick Miller, and Zara Cully (Mother Jefferson) doesn't move the film into positive territory, though a third act appearance by The Dramatics is a highlight. Perhaps the cast and crew indulged in one too many Pot-sicles whilst producing Darktown Strutters, but this is one bad trip indeed.
Lame "Blaxploitation" Vehicle
Trebaby30 June 2013
Nothing to really recommend about this unfunny attempt at a mid-'70s "blaxploitation" "musical" featuring a group of jive-talking' mamas on three-wheeled motorcycles who constantly tangle with a group of incompetent L.A. cops while simultaneously dealing with the threat of an evil Colonel Sanders-look-a-like who plans on creating a cloned race of...well, actually I was never really sure what he was trying to do. The boring plot is razor thin, the performances are sub-high school drama class and there's just not enough good music to make it worthwhile. The highlight of the film is a sequence with the Stax-signed vocal group The Dramatics performing their hit "Whatcha See is Whatcha Get" on a dungeon set(?). That was cool. The rest is barely worth a look. You have been warned.
Chicken and biscuits Scooby Doo style. All I can say is cheese wiz.
mark.waltz23 March 2022
Warning: Spoilers
This one has to be seen to be believed. Riding around with her gaggle of girls in doon buggies, sexy Trina Parks is a funny and feisty, in her only major film role playing this character with tongue firmly dipped in her cheek. She's enjoying her fights with "the man", and that leaves her into conflict with none other than "the colonel", a political mastermind outside of his chicken restaurant, out to manipulate the black vote, and having kidnapped her mother in the process. This leads to one of the weirdest film comical adventures I've ever seen which has a interracial cast where both the whites and blacks end up parodying the issues of racism, and really ripping several racial power groups a new one in the process.
You don't have to wait long to see the most outrageous prop car, a police vehicle with a huge siren and the oddest officers inside. There's another officer who puts on black face and a gown so he can trap a female rapist targeting gay men, pig headed prison guards and a haunted house like dungeon where a reproductive machine creates black voters for the future by a Willy Wonka like contraption. Cartoon like sound effects and bizarre musical numbers throughout, a cameo by Zara Cully of "The Jeffersons" and Roger E. Mosely as a parody of blaxploitation heroes are other highlights. Not a great movie by any means, but total silliness helps make this nonsensical story a lot more tolerable.
You don't have to wait long to see the most outrageous prop car, a police vehicle with a huge siren and the oddest officers inside. There's another officer who puts on black face and a gown so he can trap a female rapist targeting gay men, pig headed prison guards and a haunted house like dungeon where a reproductive machine creates black voters for the future by a Willy Wonka like contraption. Cartoon like sound effects and bizarre musical numbers throughout, a cameo by Zara Cully of "The Jeffersons" and Roger E. Mosely as a parody of blaxploitation heroes are other highlights. Not a great movie by any means, but total silliness helps make this nonsensical story a lot more tolerable.
You may never find a strange movie like this anywhere!
emm12 November 1998
DARKTOWN STRUTTERS is pure soul-crazed 70s entertainment at its maximum! I strongly urge all archivists of blaxploitation cinema to go out and hunt down this one-of-a-kind rarity, a blaxplo-comedy-musical that knows no bounds when it comes to absolute weirdness. Everything from the opening sequence ("Any similarity between this true life adventure to the story Cinderella...IS BULLS--T!") to the rest is genuine cinematic trash, but it's well worth the agony! ALABAMA'S GHOST was just as weird! I'm not too crazy about comedies, but the erraticly innovative formula was far ahead of its time (for 1974). Still, this is a one-way ticket to Funkland Junction! Among the highlights you'll get to see are a police car with a gargantuan siren and a cloning machine, which are hard to believe. The oddball taste does appear to fit well in DARKTOWN STRUTTERS, making this an enjoyable trip through a time when fashion trends and moral values have gone through mass transition. It does contain a familiar musical number by The Dramatics, singing "What You See Is What You Get". It's more than just a classic TV sitcom taped in front of a live audience, it's a campy experience that has recently gone timeless while it improves with age. See this film only once in your life and your infatuation with CAR WASH will be all over! Too bad a lot of you have missed this one!
Pathetic
TnaCdub19 June 2010
I saw this movie for the first time on TCM 06/18.10, Never heard of it. A very bad depiction of black people. I thought the "Man Tam" thing( Blacks acting like goons ) was over by 1975. I was in college and we were not clowning like that. The only thing I liked about it was the Dramatics singing. Very awful. Unbelievable, a waste of money. I recognized one actor and was surprised that he stoop so low. I don't think Denzel would ever stoop that low. I waited for the credits to see who wrote and produced this piece of garbage. Put this one in the vault. I would rather see Super Fly or Foxy Brown. Poor taste, I do not recommend any Media station to show this kind of garbage again.
Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha!!!!!!!!!!!!
ColemanDerrick2 September 2001
Directed by William Witney and written by George Armitage, Darktown Strutters is quite simply, the forerunner to I'M GONNA GIT YOU SUCKA! It is slapstick comedy that was seen on a bigger budget in BLAZING SADDLES, but because of the storyline it was quite ahead of its time. The Darktown Strutters, a group of female bikers, come into Watts, where Syreena(fearless leader of the quartet) is looking for her mother. In the middle of it all, a racist, fast food magnate is plotting to manipulate the Black community for his own intentions. Highly stylized, and fast-paced, what makes Darktown Strutters so silly is its contemporary take on urban America and racism. Modern issues such as abortion, fast food chains, cloning, police brutality, and racism are interwoven quite effectively. The villain of the piece, one Colonel Louisville Cross, made his millions as owner of the Sky Hog fast food chain: where the pork ribs are bonesuckin' good! It is a very amusing spin on the benevolent image of the dearly departed Colonel Sanders(of KFC fame), who walked the earth when this film was released. It's also funny how they avoided copyright infringement by replacing fried chicken with pork: the other white meat. It's also funny to see Syreena's contempt for the Colonel the minute she sees him. It's easy to see why the movie is overlooked. During that period, I really don't think Black Americans were in the mood for such comedies, especially when the Blaxploitation era was full of hardcore action flicks. I think too many viewers on the IMDB, who have seen this, just don't get some of the jokes. If you were around during that time, and/or if you are of African American descent, you will get a lot of the comedy on display. To compare this to Car Wash makes no sense. And it is not as weird as people make it out to be. As I said earlier, it was simply ahead of its time.
A time capsule
BandSAboutMovies23 July 2020
Warning: Spoilers
George Armitage wrote Gas-s-s-s, Private Duty Nurses, Night Call Nurses and Vigilante Force before scoring mainstream success with Miami Blues and Grosse Point Blank. He told Film Comment, "I wrote Darktown Strutters in three days, and the script form is all one sentence, the entire script is one sentence."
While he had wanted to direct this, William Witney ended up making it. Witney was a Hollywood vet, starting all the way back at Republic where he worked n movie serials. He worked a lot with Roy Rogers and at the end of his career, made a few movies with Gene Corman, including I Escaped from Devil's Island and this movie.
This is less a narrative film and more collection of hijinks as a gang of black bikers interacts with the police, all until Syreena starts to search for her missing mother, Cinderella. Turns out an evil barbecue chain - with an owner in full Klan regalia - has her.
Trina Parks from Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and Diamonds Are Forever is Syreena, backed up by a cast featuring former Ikette Edna Richardson, Roger E. Mosley (TC from Magnum, P.I.), Stan Shaw (Detective Sapir from The Monster Squad), Alvin Childress (Amos of the Amos 'n Andy TV show), Zara Cully (Mother Jefferson!) and, this being a Corman family film, Dick Miller.
Get ready for a fairy tale mixed with blaxploitation, basically, with plenty of great tunes from The Dramatics as well as John Gary Williams and The Newcomers.
And remember: "Any similarity between this true life adventure and the story Cinderella ... is BS."
While he had wanted to direct this, William Witney ended up making it. Witney was a Hollywood vet, starting all the way back at Republic where he worked n movie serials. He worked a lot with Roy Rogers and at the end of his career, made a few movies with Gene Corman, including I Escaped from Devil's Island and this movie.
This is less a narrative film and more collection of hijinks as a gang of black bikers interacts with the police, all until Syreena starts to search for her missing mother, Cinderella. Turns out an evil barbecue chain - with an owner in full Klan regalia - has her.
Trina Parks from Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and Diamonds Are Forever is Syreena, backed up by a cast featuring former Ikette Edna Richardson, Roger E. Mosley (TC from Magnum, P.I.), Stan Shaw (Detective Sapir from The Monster Squad), Alvin Childress (Amos of the Amos 'n Andy TV show), Zara Cully (Mother Jefferson!) and, this being a Corman family film, Dick Miller.
Get ready for a fairy tale mixed with blaxploitation, basically, with plenty of great tunes from The Dramatics as well as John Gary Williams and The Newcomers.
And remember: "Any similarity between this true life adventure and the story Cinderella ... is BS."
I can't believe this movie was actually made!
Casey-5215 August 2000
Like something out of a twisted 70s nightmare, DARKTOWN STRUTTERS is 100% entertainment for all the wrong reasons. I don't know if this movie is supposed to be taken seriously or is supposed to be a farce, but it certainly is unique in a way that no other blaxploitation film is.
Trina Parks (who is great, by the way) is Syreena, a black Queen biker who leads a gang of outrageously dressed black female bikers who at first race against, then become friends with a bumbling male biker gang, led by Roger E. Mosley! Syreena is trying to find her mother Cinderella, who has disappeared. Her kung-fu fighting brother has no information about her whereabouts and Syreena must turn to some pretty far out pimps and hookers to not only find Cinderella, but to expose a plot to clone black leaders by a racist Colonel Sanders-look alike who charges a fortune for mediocre rib dinners at his restaurants. Why clone black leaders? So they can be programmed to vote for white leaders! Sound like fun? It is!
The 70s fashions are out of this world, bumbling racist cops with a sonic siren harass the girls, The Dramatics sing "What You See Is What You Get" in a jail cell, the restaurant owner puts on a black-face minstrel show on a special stage in his dining room, a clone of "Colonel Sanders" comes out in diapers, amazing bike races and chases, and the final musical number while the credits roll is great! The musical score is great, making me wish a CD release was in the works (yeah right, like that will happen!). I really do love Trina Parks and her performance in this has made me anxious to track down her other films. No other notable performances, even though Dick Miller, the ultimate cult movie star, appears as one of the racist cops.
Highly recommended, DARKTOWN STRUTTERS is just a fun, kick-back kind of movie that needs not be taken seriously. Don't question anything in this movie, just watch, laugh, and you will guaranteed remember it for the rest of your life!
Trina Parks (who is great, by the way) is Syreena, a black Queen biker who leads a gang of outrageously dressed black female bikers who at first race against, then become friends with a bumbling male biker gang, led by Roger E. Mosley! Syreena is trying to find her mother Cinderella, who has disappeared. Her kung-fu fighting brother has no information about her whereabouts and Syreena must turn to some pretty far out pimps and hookers to not only find Cinderella, but to expose a plot to clone black leaders by a racist Colonel Sanders-look alike who charges a fortune for mediocre rib dinners at his restaurants. Why clone black leaders? So they can be programmed to vote for white leaders! Sound like fun? It is!
The 70s fashions are out of this world, bumbling racist cops with a sonic siren harass the girls, The Dramatics sing "What You See Is What You Get" in a jail cell, the restaurant owner puts on a black-face minstrel show on a special stage in his dining room, a clone of "Colonel Sanders" comes out in diapers, amazing bike races and chases, and the final musical number while the credits roll is great! The musical score is great, making me wish a CD release was in the works (yeah right, like that will happen!). I really do love Trina Parks and her performance in this has made me anxious to track down her other films. No other notable performances, even though Dick Miller, the ultimate cult movie star, appears as one of the racist cops.
Highly recommended, DARKTOWN STRUTTERS is just a fun, kick-back kind of movie that needs not be taken seriously. Don't question anything in this movie, just watch, laugh, and you will guaranteed remember it for the rest of your life!
One of a kind cinema, to say the least
Red-Barracuda15 September 2021
Looking for the weirdest blaxploitation movie ever? Look no further! This piece of cinematic insanity is incomprehensible and chock full of lame humour, yet it is just so out there that you cannot but admire its sheer audacity. Its story, such that it is, has a female motorcycle gang (dressed in the coolest biker gear I have ever seen) ride into town and encounter a never-ending conveyor belt of weirdos. There's no point in detailing the synopsis beyond this as I am not sure it really matters. There are some outrageous colourful sets, comedy relief racist cops(!?), a drug dealer in a white cowboy suit who pedals an ice cream cart with all his wares in it, a karate fanatic who busts moves ALL the time, a colour-co-ordinated KKK biker gang, soul groups who break into song at the drop of a fedora hat, pig men in capes, a minstrel performance(!?) and a human cloning device devised by a mad scientist. Its more an experience than anything else. Points awarded for sheer nerve.
Cancer might just be funnier....
planktonrules26 June 2010
This is my vote for one of the all-time worst blaxsploitation films--this and "Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song"--though they are very, very different movies within the same genre. "Darktown Strutters" is, apparently, supposed to be a comedy, however, and "Sweet Sweetback" simply defies description! The bottom line is that you just can't get much worse than these films and deciding which of the two is better is like deciding which you prefer--Ebola or the Bubonic Plague!!
"Darktown" stars a group of ridiculously attired black motorcycle 'chicks' who have a series of banal adventures--most of which eventually involve some cops who have the intelligence of cheese. None of the jokes work, none of the film is engaging and I simply felt this was a giant waste of timed due to horrific writing, bad and very broad acting and a story that simply went nowhere. I really wish I could have the time back that this film stole from my life--it was that unfunny and stupid. Extremely poor in every of the way, this is the most amateurish and pointless films I've seen in ages. If you want to see a good black comedy of this time period, try "Car Wash" instead. While rough, at least this film has laughs....I counted none in "Darktown"!!
"Darktown" stars a group of ridiculously attired black motorcycle 'chicks' who have a series of banal adventures--most of which eventually involve some cops who have the intelligence of cheese. None of the jokes work, none of the film is engaging and I simply felt this was a giant waste of timed due to horrific writing, bad and very broad acting and a story that simply went nowhere. I really wish I could have the time back that this film stole from my life--it was that unfunny and stupid. Extremely poor in every of the way, this is the most amateurish and pointless films I've seen in ages. If you want to see a good black comedy of this time period, try "Car Wash" instead. While rough, at least this film has laughs....I counted none in "Darktown"!!
Absolute INSANITY--Satiric Attack on Racism, or Just Racist?
curtis-89 March 2008
Darktown Strutters has to rate right up there with The Forbidden Zone for goodnatured, unbridled kinetic energy, outright insanity, and its willful desire to offend. This is a surreal flick in which everything is over the top to such a degree you have to wonder if it was due to drug use or if it was a purposeful creation of satire. In any case, I was entertained and appalled at the same time. But then again, I don't think that a middle aged white guy in the 21st century was really the intended audience for this film. The audience for this flick was the inner-city black-theater crowd of the mid-seventies. I just wonder how it played back in the day? Did they laugh along with the exaggerated black stereotypes, seeing it all as a satirical take on how black culture was seen by the mainstream? Or were they up in arms, seeing it as a slap in their collective faces by white filmmakers? I wonder. Was Darktown THE definitive satire of the "Blaxploitation" genre, or was it the genre's nadir?
the film i've been looking for my whole life!
leshaholland22 February 2008
Once upon a time, back in the mid-1980s, I had a boyfriend who didn't own a television set. Often we would lay awake late into the night, listening to the stereo simulcast of a local "all-night movie" channel (XETV, Ch. 6)beamed from Mexico into our snug, San Diego homes. Imagine our surprise and delight upon the discovery of "Get Down and Boogie," A.K.A. Darktown Strutters! If you think WATCHING this flick is a surreal,disorienting experience, just imagine trying to decipher the plot without the visuals!!! Every since that fateful night back in 1988, i've been trying to procure my own copy of this flick, to no avail. (I got an incredibly sparse n' sleazy one-sheet for it one year @ The Comic-Con: "Get Down and Boogie --This movie will fry your eggs!")
It seems to've lapsed into a "public domain" kinda thing, as the only 'official' release I can find is from East/West DVD,one of those 99-cent-store outfits, wholesale only. I do not own a credit card, which severely limits my options here... What's a blaxploitation-struck gal to do?
....March 2008 UPDATE: I FINALLY got myself a DVD copy o' this flick through Amazon.com!! Sure, it's just the $1-Store, edited for television version jacked up to $9 for a used copy, but it looks like this is the best/closest i'll ever get, and I am, for the moment, fulfilled!!! (Now if I could just get that copy of "Black Devil Doll From Hell"...
It seems to've lapsed into a "public domain" kinda thing, as the only 'official' release I can find is from East/West DVD,one of those 99-cent-store outfits, wholesale only. I do not own a credit card, which severely limits my options here... What's a blaxploitation-struck gal to do?
....March 2008 UPDATE: I FINALLY got myself a DVD copy o' this flick through Amazon.com!! Sure, it's just the $1-Store, edited for television version jacked up to $9 for a used copy, but it looks like this is the best/closest i'll ever get, and I am, for the moment, fulfilled!!! (Now if I could just get that copy of "Black Devil Doll From Hell"...
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