Adios Amigos (aka No Sweat/1975) + Jive Turkey (aka Baby Needs A New Pair Of Shoes/1974/Cheezy Flicks DVDs)
Picture:
C- Sound: C-/C Extras: C- Films: C-
When Hollywood made the
financial mistake of not backing any kind of Black Cinema or Fred Williamson in
particular, they helped give way to the Blaxploitation era, perpetuating
millions of dollars for many often independent companies. The majors got involved soon after and the
era lasted into the late 1970s. The
gangster genre was usually very popular, while the usually white-associate
Western was not. Williamson wanted to
challenge that with films like Boss (see link below) and Adios Amigos (1975), while Jive
Turkey (1974) was typical of the gangster type films.
Amigos is not as good as Boss or as funny as Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles (1974, they year
prior), but it does have Richard Prior and a cameo by James Brown in a innocent
man charged with a crime he did not commit story that is really a formula for
them to goof around. Unfortunately,
those moments do not happen enough, though I would like to see it widescreen
unlike this DVD.
Turkey is set in 1956, but the budget
was too low for them to keep it looking that way. The idea was to show that there were always
powerful Black mobsters, doing the usual sinning and infamous numbers games,
stereotypical or not. A curio today, the
film is very muddled and never really works, but the idea is interesting and
joust not realized well. A few moments
and shots are interesting, but not enough to save the film.
The 1.33
X 1 image in both cases is soft and color poor, while the PCM 16/48 2.0 Mono is
low, rough and compressed on Amigos,
so be very careful of playback levels and volume switching, while Turkey
fares a little better than expected in clarity.
Amigos was and still is a
2.35 X 1 Panavision 35mm film, so the print here is particularly butchered. Trailers and Intermission shorts are the only
extras.
Read more
about Boss as this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/7822/Boss+(1975/aka+Boss+N
- Nicholas Sheffo
