Switchblade Sisters
Director: Jack Hill
Year: 1975
Rating: 6.0
Aka -The Jezabels
(the original title of the film when first released)
These girls are so nasty they probably put
razor blades in girl scout cookies. After they steal the cookies. And push
the girl scouts down. And make them cry. Real bad girls. This is directed
by Jack Hill who was on a run of classic exploitation films and the discovery
of Pam Grier - The Big Doll House, The Big Bird Cage, Foxy Brown and Coffy
- hitting both Women in Prison films and Blaxploitation films. Then after
those, he made a cheerleader film with The Swinging Cheerleaders which probably
should have been called the Disrobing Cheerleaders. It seemed natural to
follow that up with a teenage girl gang film that has elements of Women in
Prison, Blaxploitation and women's liberation. But probably not enough nudity
because it bombed and disappeared like Jimmy Hoffa. But guess who loved it
and brought it back to life. Yup. Quentin Tarantino. It is exactly the kind
of film he would love - calls it a masterpiece - the best thing Jack Hill
has ever directed. Well, not really. I think when he watches a film, he sees
how he would have directed it.
Because there are some great ideas in here
that Tarantino could have run with but it is as corny and clutzy as a three-legged
dog running after a car. The acting is abysmal by everyone but in particular
from the leader of the girl gang who is as believable as a tough banger as
Annette Funicello would have been. Her screechy voice is enough to make her
opponents surrender. None of the gang members in any of the three gangs would
scare a grandmother with her monthly Social Security check. It looks like
Hill found them all in Welcome Back Kotter's classroom. When they try to
sound like louses with retread smack talk, it is hard not to laugh. Not that
this isn't fun and enjoyable, but a masterpiece it is not. If you are going
to make an exploitation film, the audience wants to see sex, nudity and violence
or they will demand their money back. You don't want to be sitting in a 42nd
street theater when the crowd gets restless.
A girl gang calls themselves the Dagger
Debs and they are a subsidiary and playthings for the Silver Daggers, a male
gang. And the head of the girl gang, Lace, goes out with the head of the
male gang, Dom. A tradition. Lace is so mean that when the chunky Donut asks
for a cheeseburger, Lace tells her no and that she will have to watch the
others eat. They try and push another girl sitting at a table around - but
Maggie isn't having any of it. She pushes back and throws pepper in the eye
of Patch. The only eye she has. Patch is right out of Thriller - A Cruel
Picture. The gang along with Maggie goes to jail for mugging a debt collector
in the elevator. Inside the lesbian warden sees Maggie as fresh meat and
puts on the rubber gloves for an internal search and the gang beats the crap
out of her. Afterwards Maggie and Lace begin to bond but Patch and her one-eye
gets jealous and begins whispering lies in Lace's ears.
They have to go up against another gang
- the Crabs - not a name I would have chosen - and it leads to two shootouts
- one in a roller-skating rink and one in the streets when Maggie gets the
help of a Maoist black female revolutionary group. They bring an armored
vehicle with machine guns. In the right hands those should have been two
great over the top scenes that would have made the film but they feel a little
lame. By the end the girls are no longer the Dagger Debs but have freed
themselves of male domination and servitude and call themselves with pride,
The Jezabel's. Go Jezebel's. The film has gained some cult status after receiving
Tarantino's stamp of approval and there seem to be a lot of people who love
it like they would an abandoned kitten. It is all there - the jail scene,
the two shootouts, a switchblade duel, the Maoist revolutionaries, the shit
talk to the cops - but the scenes have so little sizzle. If only Tarantino
had directed it.
