Movies about Switchblade
Insights like that were big in the exploitation movies of the 1970s. The dialogue clanked along from one dumb profundity to another, and the sentiments were as pious as political speeches. One of the characters in “Switchblade Sisters” (1975) quotes approvingly from Mao’s Little Red Book, although enlightenment among the Sisters is not universal: After the leader of a boy gang rapes a new member of a girl gang, he asks, “You all right? You were asking for it.” She is inclined to agree. “Switchblade Sisters” is one of the countless films viewed by Quentin Tarantino during his now-legendary employment at Video Archives in Manhattan Beach, Calif. (the store owner should get a finder’s fee based on QT’s subsequent career). Now Tarantino has started a division of Miramax named Rolling Thunder Pictures to re-release some of his discoveries. After “Switchblade Sisters” we are promised “Mighty Peking Man” (1977), the 1964 Italian horror film “Blood and Black Lace” and the 1973 blaxploitation epic “Detroit 9000.” Exploitation films can be a lot of fun. The director of «Switchblade Sisters,» Jack Hill, directed 16 of them, including two of my favorites, the Pam Grier films «Coffy» and «Foxy Brown.» His other titles included “Swinging Cheerleaders.” “The Big Bird Cage,” “Snake People,” “Blood Bath,” and “Spider Baby.” Often they were released more than once, under various titles; “Spider Baby” became “The Liver Eaters,” and “Switchblade Sisters” was also known as “The Jezebels” and “The Playgirl Gang.” What made the Pam Grier pictures stand out was Grier’s own charisma; she was an authentic movie star, and even Hill’s sleazy production values and slapdash photography and editing couldn’t conceal her talent. The problem with “Switchblade Sisters” is that no one on screen is any better than the talent behind the camera. The movie is badly acted, written and directed, and while I was watching it I realized that in some unexplained but happy way, the basic level of cinematic talent has improved in the past two decades. Few new directors today could make a film this bad. Low budgets have nothing to do with it. Consider Robert Rodriguez (whose “El Mariachi” cost $8,000), Matty Rich (“Straight Out of Brooklyn,” $24,000) and Edward Burns (“The Brothers McMullen,” $28,000). Despite their budgets, they are born filmmakers who know where to put a camera, how to write a script, how to cast and direct actors, and how to move things along. By contrast, “Switchblade Sisters” is a series of tableaus in which stiff actors are grouped in awkwardly composed shots to say things like “Freeze, greaseball!” The greaseball, by the way, is a sadistic bill collector trying to collect $40 in back payments on a TV set owned by a tearful welfare mother in a building that is otherwise apparently occupied only by Switchblade Sisters. As he takes the elevator to the street, another Sister gets on at every floor (are they psychic, or did they phone ahead and plan the elevator ride?). When they reach the ground floor, the greaseball gets his tie cut off. Těžký. The plot involves a girl gang named the Jezebels that hangs out at a burger stand. Maggie (Joanne Nail), a new girl in the neighborhood, refuses to give her seat to Lace (Robbie Lee), the Jezebels’ leader, and that leads to a fight but also to mutual respect. Soon Dominic (Asher Brauner), the leader of the Silver Blades, rapes Maggie—and since he is Lace’s boyfriend, this creates a certain tension.
The Jezebels are jailed, where they are mistreated by a lesbian warden before getting their revenge. Later there’s a hilarious rumble in a roller rink—it’s a shoot-out on skates with automatic weapons—that seems to leave dozens dead, although all but one of the key characters survives. The movie is wallpapered with the slogans of the era. The cops are “pigs,” the Black Power girl gang is the repository of revolutionary wisdom, there is solidarity between the girl gangs, and at some point we are astonished to be given the information that all of these characters are still in highschool, and as juveniles, cannot be tried for what seems like a citywide crime wave. The only real reason for seeing “Switchblade Sisters” would be to condescend to it, to snicker at its badness. But there are degrees of bad, and this movie falls far below Pauline Kael’s notion of “great trash.” There is also some amusement to be had from the costumes: the mile wide shirt collars, leather vests and plaid pants on the men, and the hot pants and thigh boots on the women. But such pleasures are small. Should you actually pay money to see this movie at a time when “Welcome to the Dollhouse,” “The Rock,” “Nelly and Monsieur Arnaud,” “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” and “I Shot Andy Warhol” are playing? I don’t think so.
Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert byl filmovým kritikem Chicago Sun-Times od roku 1967 až do své smrti v roce 2013. V roce 1975 získal Pulitzerovu cenu za vynikající kritiku.
When exploitation king Jack Hill made Coffy a Foxy Brown, he scored two grindhouse hits in a row, but the hits stopped coming with Switchblade Sisters. If his street gang melodrama has developed a cult following over the years, it bombed in 1975 and then again in 1996 when Quentin Tarantino supervised a re-release complete with spiffy new poster. It’s hard to say why, since it’s in the same vein as bojovníci a Rock’n’rollová střední škola, but the title may have led audiences to expect something sleazier. He starts by introducing Lace (Robbie Lee), who lives in low-income housing in Los Angeles with her stressed-out mother. She’s the living embodiment of the Henry Wadsworth poem about the girl with a curl «right in the middle of her forehead.» When she isn’t dodging rats and bill collectors, she’s raising a ruckus with her gang, the Dagger Debs, and their male counterparts, the Silver Daggers, including her steady, Dom (Asher Brauner). «I’d kill for that guy!,» she exclaims, though he hardly seems worth it. For fun, the Debs attempt to intimidate fresh-faced Maggie (návštěvník‘s Joanne Nail) at the local burger joint only to find themselves up against a girl every bit their equal. After they all spend a night in juvie, Maggie joins the gang and changes their name to the Jezebels (the original name of the film). She clinches her membership by stealing the hilariously hideous medallion from their arch-rival, Crabs (Chase Newhart), who uses a soup kitchen as a front for shady dealings. The addition of a member who shares Lace’s leadership qualities marks a new beginning for the gang until desire and jealousy get in the way. If Maggie is flirtatious, she isn’t a cheat, and she only sleeps with Dom when he takes what he wants by force. Patch (Monica Gayle), the film’s designated Iago, sets out to turn Lace against Maggie (her name comes from the silver, butterfly-appliquéd patch she wears over her left eye). Then, an easygoing evening at the roller rink turns into a massacre when chains and machine guns come into play, leading to a miscarriage and a murder. Once the ladies have had enough of the Silver Daggers and their macho shenanigans, they join forces with a gang of militant Black women. Hill amps up the violence as the turf wars escalate. The Jezebels get their vengeance against Crabs and his hoodlums, but internal tensions leave the group in tatters, though Maggie vows they’ll be back, bigger and badder than ever. To call Switchblade Sisters feminist would be a stretch, but for exploitation fare, it extends more sympathy to the downtrodden women than to the boorish men, who aren’t even especially charismatic, except for the swaggering Crabs with his goofily groovy threads. An abundant array of extras, including vintage featurettes and an informative commentary track from Samm Deighan and Kat Ellinger provide details about the making of the film, its reception, and its legacy. Recommended for adventurous collections.
Tagy
Kathy Fennessy
Hodnocení hvězd
Od března 2022 se Video Librarian změnil ze čtyřhvězdičkového systému hodnocení na pětihvězdičkový. Tato změna umožňuje našim recenzentům mít širší rozsah kritických úhlů pohledu a také se synchronizovat se strukturou hodnocení Google. Tato změna ovlivní všechny recenze od března 2022. Všechny recenze před tímto obdobím si stále zachovají své původní hodnocení. Budoucí filmy budou považovány za naše nová 1-5 hvězdičková kritéria.
Nejoblíbenější
Objednejte si od svého oblíbeného distributora ještě dnes:
Switchblade Cinema is a production company founded by directing team A/K: Alix Austin & Keir Siewert — self-professed weirdos and international mutts, hailing from the UK, the US and Switzerland.
Their toxic relationship body horror debut feature KILL YOUR LOVER will start its festival circuit in 2023. The film is backed by Douglas Cox (HOST) as an Executive Producer. The film was inspired by their love of the French Extreme & South Korean cine ma.
They were selected to be part of FrightFest and Queens bury Picture’s NEW BLOOD ’22 initiative. T he team are also the recipient of the Raimi Productions Scholarship for the Rogue Studios program as featured in FANGORIA.
PREVIOUS WORK SCREENED AT:
Other notable work includes co-directing the London segment for Horror Antholo gy ‘ISOLATION’, al ongside Larry Fessenden, Bobby Roe and Denn ie Gordon, which premiered at FrightFest and Screamfest 2021 and featured in Variety, Bloody Disgusting and more.
Their multiple award-winning short film roster has screened at over 100 festivals globally:
RETCH (2018): Available on ALTER & Bloody Disgusting TV
PORTRAIT (2020): Available to stream on Klipist
SUCKER (2022): Available on ALTER & Bloody Disgusting TV
You can find biographies for A/K below:
We collect Movies about Switchblade rating based on ratings and reviews on popular services. To collect Movies about Switchblade we analyze rendition, popular services, comments, people reviews, forum comments and make our own rating. If you think there is a movie missing in the selection, you can leave a comment with the name of the movie that should be included in the selection. Let’s make a rating Movies about Switchblade together!
