Black Shampoo (1976)

John Daniels, fresh his triumphant portrayal of a smooth mack daddy pimp in the immortal "The Candy Tangerine Man," does his charmless macho black stud muffin on wheels shtick once again as Mr. Jonathan, a tough, irresistible, and extremely promiscuous hairdresser who happily does the deed with his lovely, wealthy, and predominantly white distaff customers. Mr. Jonathan's carefree hedonistic Los Angeles existence gets disrupted when a bunch of pernicious Italian gangsters led by despicable greaseball Joe Ortiz trash his Sunset Strip beauty salon and try to steal his foxy main squeeze Tanya Boyd away from him. Not one to idly tolerate being pushed around, Mr. Jonathan breaks out a handy chainsaw to kick some major syndicate butt! Cheesy, low-rent, and fabulously addle-pated, this honey rates highly as one delectably dopey blaxploitation combination of dippy soap opera and sleazy revenge action: Greydon Clark's unskillful direction manages to be quite savory in a schlocky stupid sort of way, there's plenty of torrid quasi-pornographic sex scenes and mouth-watering full-frontal female nudity (Mrs. Boyd in particular looks blazing hot in her birthday suit), the priceless godawful dialogue will leave you in stitches ("So, Mr. Jonathan, is it true that you are the best in the West?"), the other two male beauty salon employees are hysterically offensive and politically incorrect limp-wristed gay stereotypes (one of these homosexuals winds up having a hot curling iron crammed right where the sun doesn't shine!), the cinematography by Dean Cundey and Michael J. Mileham alternates between the slick and the shoddy with heart-warming frequency, Gerald Lee's get-down funky-grinding score sounds like it belongs in a raunchy 70's X-rated flick, and the climactic outburst of last reel action delivers oodles of bloody excessive violence. Overall, this riotously rancid chunk of prime 70's drive-in junk offers enough seamy thrills to appease even the most jaded "I've seen it all" aficionado of vintage Graze Z exploitation fare.

I got a fair amount of entertainment out of this diverting if forgettable blaxploitation entry, but then I approached the whole thing looking at it as tongue in cheek. If one were to take it seriously, they might well find it in the "so bad it's good" category. A stiff, not too charming John Daniels is cast as Mr. Jonathan (whether that's his first or last name doesn't matter), owner / operator of a hair salon and also irresistible stud muffin to a variety of (mostly white) women. Trouble brews when Brenda (Tanya Boyd), his secretary, is threatened by her former employer, a mob boss named Mr. Wilson (Joseph Carlo). Wilson and his thugs mean business, and among their methods used are the trashing of the salon and the sodomizing of one of the employees. This dumb but fun movie comes complete with the expected funky music score with the ever present "wacka wacka" guitar, two flagrant gay stereotypes, and what will be the most appreciated by exploitation fans, an ample serving of female nudity. This certainly is a trashy outing, as the over sexed daughters of one customer unrelentingly come on to Mr. Jonathan, and it can be a very funny one as well. Just witness the awkwardly staged and ridiculous salon trashing episode. One has to see it to believe it. Hell, there's even a Western themed costume party in which one party goer is absurdly dressed in ballet gear. Things really pick up towards the end, where Mr. Jonathan is pursued by the sadistic mob flunkies armed with a miniature chainsaw. Now, we don't get to see too much detail when he carves them up, but this is an amusing bit of business nevertheless. In fact, the climax in general is pretty violent. With the level of exploitation on display, this should entertain some viewers, and it manages to generate some hearty laughs as well; the music score is at times utterly ridiculous. All in all, this probably won't become a classic or get too many retrospectives but it's a mild hoot for people with certain tastes. Seven out of 10.

Well I'm not saying it's one of my favorite movies but it's entertaining in a "that could never happen" kind of way. I think really bad acting can be funny, as is the case in this movie..also bad editing and cheesy "soft core"...material is humorous to me. I got a good laugh out of it! For instance, there's a scene in the beginning where Mr. Jonathat does a 'house call' and he gets 'attacked' by two white chicks, and the camera pans to some floating object in the pool! There was no reason for it, and I can't even tell what the object is to be honest! That type of really bad film production is entertaining somehow.

Right before director Greydon Clark did "Satan's Cheerleaders", he made this 1976 violent blaxploitation cheese ball about a salon owner/gigolo, Mr. Johnathan (John Daniels, who looks like a smaller, african american Lou Ferrigno) getting revenge on the white mobsters who kidnap his secretary/girlfriend, beat up his gay hairdressers and trash his salon. This has plenty of cheezy acting, especially from the stereotypical gay hairdressers. The film is definitely not boring, except for some romantic 70s montages in the middle. There's plenty of sex, nudity, and violence resulting in a conclusion that involves chainsaw mutilations and a pool cue impaling! It shouldn't dramatically disappoint fans of the genre, but don't expect laughs like the Dolemite films. After you see it once, you probably won't come back to it. Its good for a cheap rental on bad 70s night. Black Shampoo goes mostly for a serious tone, although it has problems staying there. How serious can you take an angry hairdresser?