Shanty Tramp

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.

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.

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!

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.