The Darktown Strutters Motorcycle Club consists of four lovely ladies:
Syreena (Trina Parks), Carmen (Edna Richardson), Miranda (Bettye Sweet), and Theda (Shirley Washington). Unlike the members of their male
counterparts’ club (led by Mellow as essayed by Roger Mosley), the Strutters are far classier than damn near
everyone they come across. And they do
love to have a good time. But Syreena is
also on the lookout for her mother Cinderella (Frances Nealy) who, along with many prominent members of the black
community, has recently gone missing.
And somehow local barbecue magnate Commander Cross (Norman Bartold) is mixed up in all this.
If the very first thing you
notice about William Witney’s film
(aka Get Down and Boogie) is anything
other than the girls, their costumes, and their trikes, you’re either blind or you’re
watching a different movie. Their
helmets alone are so garish, even The
Commodores would think twice about wearing them. But this is how the women in this film distinguish
themselves from others, specifically from men.
The men are decidedly hillbilly-esque in both looks and manners. They wear more traditional biker clothing,
bib overalls, and one even dons a coonskin cap.
They are all excessively dumb, and are lead around by their penises, and
this makes it easy for the women to control them. When Cross isn’t dressed like a natty,
Southern gent he wears an outfit that makes the Strutters’ clothes look
positively subtle by comparison, but Cross’ costumes go expressly to making him
look overtly like an ass.
The Strutters (their name, I
assume, comes from the Shelton Brooks
1917 jazz song, The Darktown Strutters’
Ball) are in rarefied air, cinematically speaking. They are forever in perilous circumstances
(or at least Syreena is, since the film simply forgets about the others for
long stretches of time), but they are never in danger. They are forever thrust into ridiculous
situations, but they are never allowed to look bad, per se. This film is about girls versus boys, and it
is strictly on the side of the girls.
Aside from making the police and their own boy toys look like blockheads
at every turn, the women are in charge of everything. Part of the plot involves women getting
abortions, and it’s an element that isn’t even debated in the narrative. It’s simply a necessity of life for some
people. That’s pretty progressive if you
think about when this film was produced (hell, even today).
Even more importantly, Syreena
controls the narrative in a metatextual sense.
In fact, she stops the film dead in its tracks faster than the pod race
sequence in Star Wars: Episode One
just so The Dramatics can perform Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get. Now, song and dance numbers are no big deal in
films, but you need to remember several things in regards to this one. First, they do the whole song from intro to fade
out. Second, they do it while Syreena is
in the process of escaping from the bad guys (at which point she stops to –
ahem – get down and boogie). Third, the
band is dressed in their stage costumes, and their cell is dressed like a
lounge club. Now, if you can picture
that scene in your head, you have a decent idea of what this film is all
about. This is absurdist humor from stem
to stern. However, what makes Darktown Strutters different from
something like, say, Hellzapoppin is
that the latter film has some wit to what it does.
By contrast, Witney’s film has just about zero wit going on under its hood. The gags and jokes aim for the absolute
lowest common denominator. The
characters directly address the audience to remind us just how hilarious their
wacky antics are. There’s more mugging
for the camera in this film’s ninety minutes than in all eight seasons of The Cosby Show combined. Now, you may argue that The Three Stooges were never above flinging food at peoples’ faces
for a chuckle, but I think that misses the point. It’s not what you do it’s how you do it, and The Stooges’ personalities never felt
put on like masks. Comedy of this
variety is difficult to do, because I don’t think it succeeds when the characters
are in on the joke, when they self-consciously wink at the viewers. If the performers are just clowning around,
having fun with their pals and so on, it may be charming to some degree, but it
typically doesn’t work comically (well, not for me). Imagine a pre-teen who very self-consciously
tries to make up jokes for his or her parents’ friends or hears one funny thing
that everyone laughs at and then proceeds to beat it into the ground. This film is like that. You have a scene where Syreena meets up with
her brother Flash (Gene Simms) at
their childhood home. Flash is now into
martial arts after a trip to Africa, and he and his sister completely destroy
the house while grabassing around. They
do all this with grins on their faces, but these are the grins of people trying
not to break scene rather than siblings having fun with one another, and that’s
what makes scenes like this stick out like sore thumbs.
As you might expect from a film
called Darktown Strutters, it is loaded
with political incorrectness. There are
literally KKK members chasing after
Syreena and company in broad daylight.
They even have a large replica of a burning cross with them when they do
it. Commander Cross’ Sky Hog barbecue restaurant is staffed
by rednecks of the Deliverance
variety, replete with missing teeth, scraggly hair, and permanent scuff marks
on their faces. Cross’ headquarters is
set up like a pre-Civil War Southern plantation, with black people toiling away
inside and out. Cross himself is the
very spit of Colonel Harland Sanders (minus
the glasses). He even has a minstrel
show put on for his amusement. One of
Mellow’s buddies is named V.D. (Otis Day),
and he squirts anyone he touches with (I’m guessing here) penicillin. The police (including an all-but-lost Dick Miller) are in the classic “fascist
pig” mode (also forging a link of sorts with Cross and his cohorts). The cops have a “Ghetto Alert Map” with a
built-in “N***** Alarm.” An undercover officer
gets done up in black face and drag, because he’s after a female rapist who “preys
on faggots.” Prostitution is a fully
accepted fact of life (along with the aforementioned abortions). A character sells “Pot-sicles” (and other
drugs) to children, who also happen to be “Baby Crips.” The list goes on. Whether you find any of this distasteful or
not, you have to admit that a film like this couldn’t even be brought up as an
idea today without coming under a shit storm of self-righteous backlash. So, even if I don’t love this movie, a part
of me is thrilled that it exists at all.
MVT: Trina Parks is charismatic in the film, and she most definitely has
the ability to carry it. Sadly, she
never had much opportunity to do so in her short (as of this writing) acting
career.
Make or Break: As I stated earlier,
you will notice the girls and their rides and not want to take your eyes off of
them. Even if it’s only to ponder what
the filmmakers were smoking to come up with these things.
Score: 6/10