User reviews

As a director Charles Laughton made only one film, "The Night of the Hunter" and it's one of the greatest films ever made. Just over 10 years later Jose G. Pietro directed his only film, "Shanty Tramp" and it's ... well, let's just say it's "Shanty Tramp", (the title really does say it all). It's a tale of sex, violence, race and religion but mostly sex and it will fit very nicely into any volume on trash movies. It is very cheaply made and very, very badly acted and yet you could say it was remarkably bold for its time. The hero is a young African-American, the villain, or at least one of them, a crooked preacher and it's 'heroine', the shanty tramp of its title and I loved every sordid, glorious minute of it. As a first feature it was hardly "Citizen Kane", (more like "Titties and Cane"), and as a piece of cheap exploitation it was hardly likely to bring Pietro to the attention of the major studios but neither is it negligible and it certainly deserves its cult status.

The end credits reveal that the original print was burned in a fire and the film was digitally remastered in 2018. It is noticeable with the choppy editing quality and one hour and twelve minute running time.

In spite of those issues, this black and white curiosity is quite entertaining. Eleanor Vaill is Emily, the title character and she is very good here. Miss Vaill must be a ghost because an internet search reveals no biographical information on the actress other than a listing of two other roles in 1967.

A holy roller Joel Osteen type of BS preacher rolls into town and cons the locals into handing over their cash. He spots Emily in the crowd and arranges a hookup with the siren.

In the meantime, a Black man has the misfortune of running into the tramp and he and Emily do not live happily ever after in the deep South of the 1960's.

Do not expect Elmer Gantry but for a quickie low budget effort, Shanty Tramp is worth a viewing.

Exploitative story of a day (mostly night) in the life of a shanty tramp, southern slang for prostitute. What does this movie have but every cliché you might imagine people think about when they use the phrase 'white trash'.

On this one hot summer night, there's prostitution, religious hypocrisy, misogyny, drunkenness, fistfights, bigotry, interracial sex, biker gangs, incest, lynching, moonshine, a car chase with explosive results, nudity, murder, and even an instance of walking out on the restaurant tab! There's more than can be listed.

All presented in stereotyped characterizations, but the lead female, Lee Holland, does an admirable job in her only film role ever, as does the fellow playing the lecherous preacher, a Paul Newman look-alike. Also nice is the fact that all scenery are actual locations, making for a realistic setting. Most likely someplace in Florida, as the accents are not too deep south, more typical for Florida, and the producer K Gordon Murray worked out of a facility in Coral Gables.

One of the more enjoyable exploitation trash films I've seen.

Somewhere in the generic South, is a town. This town has everything from a lecherous, greedy preacher, to the town drunk and from a motorcycle gang to bootleggers. This movie is an exploitation movie. Its not a very good one, however. But it does manage to exploit everything "southern".

Emily is the town whore. She whores it up real good. If she's not hitting on the preacher or making out with random bikers (bikers with names like Savage and Rat), she's having sex with Daniel (the only black man in town, who lives with his mother) and causing all kinds of evil. You know Emily is an evil sort, from the opening scene. With the song "While the Saints Go Marching On", she staggers drunkenly through town hitting on men and putting out matches before people can light their cigarettes (truly evil). Her father, the town drunk, abuses and beats her. There are racist police around. A posse is formed. Hooch is produced. A lot of scheming goes on, with the soundtrack being jazzy beatnik. There's also an insanely long crazy 60's rock/beatnik dancing sequence at the "bar". Truly horrifying.

The dialog is atrocious in this movie. For example, a scene between Savage the biker leader and Emily goes something like this :

Emily : "Come on big man. You promised me a fin. I wanna see it."

Savage : "Shut up baby and put out."

The truly classic lines belong to Savage (solo). Lines like :

"I'm so dry I can drink root beer." ; "Dance goddamn it. Dance !! Can't you hear the music ??!!"

I would only recommend this movie for communal drunk watching. By the way, this movie had the worst stabbing by a topless woman EVER !!!

Buried within all the sleaze, nudity and awfulness is the basis for a potentially good film. But because it's all made so artlessly and cheaply, you lose what COULD have made a heck of a good film about some important social topics.

Now it's no surprise that "Shanty Tramp" is an awful film. Heck, the title alone pretty much says it all. The story surrounds a very horny and sociopathic young lady, Emily. She seems to spend nearly every moment of this film catting about, trying to bed practically everyone and anyone. Eventually, she gets in over her head and a biker gang leader is more interested in raping her than paying for it, as she demands. Unfortunately for a local black man, he comes upon the assault and stops it. Why unfortunate? Well, she is so trashy that she soon beds this nice guy...and when caught with this black man, she claims she was being assaulted by him!! Now the town is in a lynch mob mentality....and the guy has to run for his life.

As all this is happening, there's a local evangelist holding tent meetings. Not surprisingly in this sort of film, he's a total hypocrite who is more interested in sex, money and alcohol than the Good Book! And, he's the one who stirs up the town to hang the innocent black man.

The film is very shocking for 1967, though by today's standards, the cursing, violence and many topless scenes would probably make it a rated-R picture. I can only assume it would have been rated X had the rating system been in place (it debuted a year after this film)....and it must have shocked a lot of people! I am pretty sure a lot of Southerners were offended at the way the film portrays them!!

Overall, there isn't much technically to like about the film. The soundtrack is cheap and repetitive, the acting is mostly amateurish and the writing is all over the place. At times, it seems to actually have something to say...but most of the time is just wallows in sleaze.

It's probably not a film to show your mother, kids nor Father O'Malley if he stops by for a visit...but could be fun to watch with friends in order to laugh at the sloppiness of the film.

There were apparently only three bad copies of this movie and no negative before it's restoration.

The resultant print is pristine.

The question is, why would anyone want to save this movie? It sucks.

Must be that agenda.

The actress cant act and the story line is down right dumb. Thankfully, she barely speaks. She just mugs.

It's so boring a movie that I actually fell alsleep for a good 25 minutes in the middle! And it's not a long film.

My suggestion is don't bother. There is nothing socially relevant about it. And nothing worth saving. It's just plain garbage that is poorly rendered.

Wonder how much money was wasted restoring this travesty of filmmaking...

This film is so sleazy that you'll want to take a shower after watching it--and that's exactly what makes it so much fun. There's something here to offend and repulse everyone. It's the story of a southern white trash party girl looking for thrills, who lures a virtuous young black guy into destruction, along the way having some unforgettable sexual encounters with (a) a crooked tent-revival preacher, (b) a sadistic motorcycle gang leader, and (c) her own alcoholic father. Cheap production values and obvious first-timer acting only add to the sleazy atmosphere. Crack open a beer and enjoy!

Set in some random town in the south, Emily the Shanty Tramp prowls from bar to barn looking for any kind of action she can get. Shanty Tramp is filled with the broadest spectrum of unsavory characters I've seen anywhere: a corrupt preacher, a drunk and abusive father, bumbling racist police officers, and a caricatured black mamma straight from the old Aunt Jemima bottle label. The only even slightly savory character in the film is a passion-addled black man who... well, better not spoil it, but let's just say what the only even slightly virtuous character meets a tragic end. Shanty Tramp was a marvelously controversial movie from all angles, serving the same purient, voyeuristic "other people's disasters" interests that Jerry Springer shows have today. Pink Flamingoes lacks the genuine, heartfelt sleaze that this film has in spades. I give this movie a 10 for unbelievably, shamelessly trashy cinematic excellence.

There was a big market for films with sex and violence at their center in the 1960s. One can't blame the filmmakers for taking advantage of that. One also can't blame the filmmakers for not having much money and using not totally professional actors and actresses. On the other hand, there's a lot to like about the film. It is surprisingly realistic, thoughtful, and competently shot and edited. It manages to capture a lot of the attitudes and morals of the 1960s, showing both the racism and hypocrisy that was common in the South of this time period. It isn't a great film, but certainly holds your attention and is worth seeing for its historical value. If you want to see what the pre-civil rights South in America was like, this will give you a good idea.

Shanty Tramp (1967)

* (out of 4)

Emily (Eleanor Vaill) is the town slut who constantly flaunts her body to anyone willing to look. This film takes a look at one night when a preacher is doing a tent revival and Emily is out doing her thing. She comes onto a black man but when her racist father catches them she screams rape.

SHANTY TRAMP gets a lot of credit from some for being one of the first movies to really look at such issues as rape, sexuality, the town slut and even racism but c'mon. It really isn't all that original and especially since it seems to have taken certain elements of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD and centered the entire film around that.

Director Joseph P. Mawra made several sexploitation pictures in his day including the infamous OLGA trilogy. This film here was obviously shot on a very low-budget and it's also very poorly made. The performances are beyond bad, the cinematography is even worse and I'd argue that the entire thing was quite predictable. In fact, the movie is a real chore to sit through even though it clocks in at just 72-minutes.

The film certainly wants to take on some serious issues but they all come across quite laughable but I will say that the somewhat twist ending did work extremely well and especially how everything played out. I guess you can give the director and producer K. Gordon Murray credit for trying something bold and daring but sadly the production values just aren't there to make it work. It is worth noting that assistiant director was Bob Clark, the man who would go onto make such films as PORKY'S, A CHRISTMAS STORY and CHILDREN SHOULDN'T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS.

Shanty Tramp is often mentioned as one of the precursors to the exploitation tradition - and that would certainly seem to be true. While films like Psycho and Peeping Tom had already brought violence to the forefront, this film revels in pure SLEAZE - as while still comparatively tame compared to some later efforts, Shanty Tramp still contains a number of detestable characters including a drunken father, a sinful preacher and, of course, the central character - an insatiable young hussy who uses people for her own enjoyment. The plot focuses on said character as she sets out looking for adventure at other people's expense. She meets a man at a bar, but he ends up getting in a scrap with a black man and is shocked to find that she prefers him! After rounding up his mates, the men prepare for vengeance upon the black man; as does the girl's drunken father, who believes his daughter's lies that he raped her and gets 'every white man in town' looking for him. All this goes on while a shady preacher is busy shouting about the lord!

The film was obviously shot on a very limited budget as the whole thing looks very cheap. Shanty Tramp was shot in black and white, but it's not the fluid black and white picture that adorns many, bigger budgeted, films as this one looks like the filmmakers got a load of film stock on the cheap. The acting too is mostly terrible, and the dialogue is mostly trite; but all this is unlikely to put off the seasoned exploitation fan, who will no doubt be used to poor production values and non-talented performers. None of this stuff matters anyway, as the real focus of the film is on the shady characters and nasty situations that they find themselves in. The film doesn't feature much blood - and indeed, there is only one real shocking sequence in the entire film, but this is down to the time in which the film was made, and Shanty Tramp is still an excellent early taster of things to come. Overall, this might not be a great film in the classic sense - but I'm sure it had some influence on films that are classics, and it's well worth tracking down both for that reason and for the fact that it's a great deal of fun to watch!

If you don't know what you're letting yourself in for, you probably shouldn't be watching this. Otherwise, it delivers all it promises in every respect. You may feel the need to bathe after this delightful trash and will have numerous lines to quote. Joyfully sleazy.