Black Hooker

Just when I think I've seen every unnoticed example of the 'blaxploitation' genre...along comes this quirky, sincere little film from 1972. It more rightly fits, perhaps, into the sub-genre of African-American themed films set in the Great Depression, like "Book of Numbers" and "Thomasine and Bushrod". The actress who plays the main character's mother bears a rather striking resemblance to Josephine Baker. The film's stage origins often stick out and the fact that all the dialogue was post-synched doesn't help to alleviate a general sense of technical stiffness. Still, it's an interesting story about the son of a light-skinned prostitute (improbably played by an actor who's far too fair-skinned, blonde and blue-eyed) caught between the clash of white and black cultures. The video version I watched (on Edde) was actually a pretty good looking print (apart from a few bad stretches on the soundtrack), moderately letterboxed even. If you can find this and are a fan of the genre, check it out.

Well what can I say, this is a true Blaxpoitation film. To be honest I totally adore this genre and this movie hasn't changed it at all. Basically it follows a little white boy who is the son of a black hooker. (Go figure!) Anyway, he lives with his grandma and grandpa. The characters don not have any names at all, which only adds to the special ambience of the film. Everybody Should really check out the awesome psychedelic special effects of the burial scene! This movie is a real eye-opener! Blaxpoitation will never be the same!!

This is really a successor to the one-man, low-budget productions of Oscar Micheaux in the 1920's and 1930's, rather than one of the blaxploitation movies of the 1960's and 1970's.

Blaxploitation movies were urban. They were action movies with karate, knife, and gun fights; they pitted black heroes (sometimes good guys but often criminals themselves) against bad white guys (usually politicians and cops). They had pounding rhythm and blues scores and pimp style, and most of them were produced by major film studios, though on relatively small budgets.

The black-audience shoestring independent productions of Micheaux and his colleagues, on the other hand, most frequently had rural or small-town settings. Their characters were rarely involved in crime, and there was minimal violence. There was also little conflict between blacks and whites; the conflict was intraracial, and the movies usually had a religious, moral, or social message.

Under either title, "Black Hooker" or "Street Sisters," this movie markets itself as a blaxploitation movie, but its main elements are all from the earlier genre. It's the drama of a conflicted family, with a grandfather who is a crazed preacher; a grandmother who is the earthy family peacemaker; their daughter, the title character, who is more like the fallen woman in the earlier films than like the flashy, assertive whores of the later ones; and the daughter's son who is light enough to pass for white (and passing is a common theme of the earlier movies).

It's also, unfortunately, just as clumsily plotted and directed as the Micheaux movies.

When I worked with L.A. County, I knew Art Roberson fairly well, tho I have no idea of his current status or whereabouts. We were both social workers in the ghetto (really) in the 1970s. My impression was that being a social worker was his day job, that being a movie maker was his primary ambition...so what else is new?

The movie, some interiors of which were shot at the legendary Joe Jost's in Long Beach, premiered for friends and associates at Warner Bros. screening room in Burbank. At the end of the showing, it was greeted by dead silence, replacing excitement or applause.

I think the viewers realized that the director had blown a pretty good chance to do something worthwhile after all his work, investment and attention to this film.

Originally entitled something like "Don't Leave Go My Hand" (or maybe

"Don't Let Go My Hand"), it was supposed to sensitively portray the horrible life of a neglected (or abused, I don't recall which) black child, the son of a...you guessed it...black hooker!

But that original intent didn't play, so the title was changed to "Black Hooker," presumably to piggyback on the blaxploitation movement at the time.

As sort of a metaphor for that all-too-sensitive evening's experience, after the showing, as the cars were wending out of the Warner Bros. lot, I clearly recall the car of a black viewer rear-ending the car of a white viewer who had stopped short at a traffic light...an embarrassing wreck.

Not depressed enough? Why don't you try this film that involves the life and times of some poor kid who has to be brought up by his grandparents because his mum is out there getting her kicks from Johns while getting them to bite her real heard or something because she thrives on their hate.

Add to that the grandfather who is a priest who thinks his grandson is some sort of abomination but ain't afraid to play stinky finger with his grandson's childhood sweetheart. To be honest if you can even make it to this part in the movie without removing your eyeballs with a spoon then you may actually have the same kind of OCD as me.

Easily the weakest film in the mill Creek Drive in Classics box set, this film is like standing in line to get a hot dog, pishing yourself, then weeping uncontrollably.