4 stars for this riot of bullets, babes and blood.
First released in 1973, Black Mama, White Mama was directed by Eddie Romero (Agila) and was part of the burgeoning Blaxploitation movement in film, deftly combining the concepts of both the Women In Prison films and Blaxploitation. This release is brought to us by Arrow Video.
Just before the release of Coffy, this film stars the always magnificent Pam Grier (‘Sheba, Baby’, Scream Blacula Scream) as tough cookie Lee Daniels.
Lee is a prostitute with high up connections in the local drug scene, in the Philippines. She finds herself thrown into a women’s correctional facility alongside feisty revolutionary Karen Brent (Margaret Markov – The Hot Box, The Arena). From the start they don’t get on and after a particularly nasty altercation they find themselves thrown into the hot box for 24 hours.
Upon their release, they are chained together and stuck into the back of a transport vehicle to be carted off for questioning about their knowledge of both drug barons and the upcoming revolution.
Rescued by Karen’s guerilla friend Ernesto (Zaldy Zshornack – Hit and Run), they make off into the undergrowth, but are left with a dilemma. Lee wants to head off to collect her stolen cash and get away from the island and Karen wants to get back to her revolution.
They are still chained together and just to top it all off they are being pursued by all sorts of different factions including the police, Vic Cheng (Vic Diaz – Death Force) and the delightfully evil Ruben (Sid Haig – The Devil’s Rejects, Foxy Brown).
Black Mama, White Mama is packed full of action from start to finish. One thing noticeable by it’s absence is modesty. There are very few clothes worn in this film and the gratuitous shower scene with the ladies in the prison at the start should be enough to keep most blokes happy.
There are some quality bitch fights too, made even more entertaining by the fact that they are tied together, as are the nun impersonations. The acting is pretty good and a good man (or woman) hunt is always exciting.
A good conversion to Blu-ray and well worth adding to your collection.
“I don’t like cops. And cops don’t like me.”
Black Mama, White Mama is available to buy now on Blu-ray.