Black Mama White Mama (1973)

Pretty much a good chunk of Pam Grier's early 1970s career, before breaking out in a starring role in Coffy, was spent making cheap women-in-prison movies for American International in the Philippines.  At the time Ferdinand Marcos, the Filipino president, encouraged foreign filmmakers to come to the country to film as well as developing its own homegrown industry that wasn't too dissimilar from what the Australians, Americans and Italians were making.  While many of Grier's movies were made for Jack Hill, who would go on to direct her in Coffy and Foxy Brown, one of her biggest titles in 1973 was made for Filipino director Eddie Romero. 

Lee Daniels (Grier) is a prostitute who finds herself sentenced to a women's prison in the Philippines.  Along with her is a white revolutionary named Karen Brent (Margaret Markov) who is using her funds to help a guerilla organization.  Although they don't get along they are forced to cooperate when, while being transported back to Manila for questioning, the prison convoy is attacked by Karen's friends.  In the chaos the two flee while still being shackled to each other.

The causes some issues as Lee is looking to get off the island while Karen is needing to meet up with revolutionary Ernesto (Zaldy Zshornack) in order to make sure the group is supplied with weapons, and where they need to go is in opposite directions.  Meanwhile, an officer named Cruz (Eddie Garcia) taps a pimp and tracker named Ruben (Sid Haig) to find the girls, while Lee's own pimp Vic (Via Diaz) begins his own search, hoping to punish Lee for trying to escape. 

Black Mama White Mama is a feminized exploitation retelling of The Defiant Ones, with future director Jonathan Demme as one of the co-writers.  It has many of the same beats in the main story about the women becoming friends through adversity, where the differences are the copious amounts of violence and nudity thrown in to entertain grindhouse audiences.

It was definitely not meant to be art, but Romero can't help but capture quite a bit of the beauty of Luzon and its culture, although this is squarely aimed at an American audience.  Where too many of these films are a tedious experience this one is a lot of fun, even if Haig's tracker character that is billed as a supporting actor really doesn't amount to much.  He's still entertaining but it was obvious by this point that Grier was the breakout star of these movies and her easy acting style helps buoy this production.

Margaret Markov isn't bad, either, although her being a hard-bitten revolutionary is a bit of a strain on the suspension of disbelief.  It would have been nice to see more of her connection with Ernesto, but this isn't that kind of film.  Along with the main story there are the obligatory women-in-prison plot points, albeit run through rather quick to get to the meat of the story.  That means there are lesbian prison guards, corrupt cops and a pretty decent scene of all the prisoners showering together.  I know to modern sensibilities a good part of this movie may come across as objectifying and tasteless, but I found it amusing how much of this was meant to titillate a male audience at the time, and how it feels a bit old fashioned.  Thankfully, this is one of those movies that skips any heavy rape scenes, the only implied situation leading to a quick death of the perpetrator before anything happens.

Black Mama White Mama is still quite a sleazy film, but it never gets boring and doesn't leave the viewer feeling disgusted at any point.  Instead, it does what a good drive-in film is supposed to do, and manages to do it better than most of the copycat films made around the same time. 

Black Mama White Mama (1973)

Time: 87 minutes

Starring: Pam Grier, Margaret Markov, Sid Haig, Zaldy Zshornack

Director: Eddie Romero