Black Mama, White Mama – 1972
Director
Eddie Romero

Writers
H.R. Christian (screenplay)
Joe Viola (story)

Cast
Pam Grier
Margaret Markov
Sid Haig

Review by Wayne Malin

Great title–so-so movie,

Movie opens in a womens prison in the Phillipines. A black hooker (Pam Grier) and a white revolutionary (Margaret Markov) escape but are chained to each other. Naturally they hate each other but have to work together to escape.

Silly AIP exploitation film. The plot is a ripoff of “The Defiant Ones”–but that was a good movie. This movie is just basically made to show off as much gratuitous female nudity as possible. There’s the obligatory shower sequence; some real extreme lesbian content (for an R rated film); a real sick torture scene and plenty of topless females. This would probably get an NC-17 if released today. There’s also plenty of loud, violent gun fights with lots of blood. Most of the film concerns Grier and Markov running and running and running and running…to get away. Gets dull pretty quick.

Add to that plenty of bad acting–Grier gives a rare bad performance; Markov is just OK and cult favorite Sid Haig overacts (badly). The script is lousy–full of unintentional howlers.

Still I suppose for what it is (an AIP exploitation film) it’s pretty good but I found it very unpleasant and dull. I’m only giving it a 6.