The Muthers (1976)

This was a random Shudder pick based on a fun sounding premise and attractive actresses. I didn’t realize this was a Cirio H. Santiago joint, and nearly bailed when I saw his name in the credits. Thankfully this was significantly more entertaining than my last Santiago movie (Ebony, Ivory & Jade, also from 1976 and also starring Rosanne Katon, swoon).

The movie opens with a group of modern day Southeast Asian pirates led by two beautiful Black women, Kelly (Jean/Jeanne/Jeannie Bell) and Angie (Rosanne Katon). It immediately establishes a higher level of style and effort than E, I & J, as “The” text is superimposed over the boat’s name “Muthers” to create the title card. Our ladies and their crew rip-off rich people on a yacht, then go to local islands to move the merch. They are in competition with another pirate crew led by Turko. After a skirmish with Turko’s group, the Muthers return home to find out that Kelly’s troubled sister Sandra has run away. They search for her until a mystery man from the Justice Department shows up. He tells them Sandra is locked up in a prison/plantation run by the brutal Monteiro. The Justice Department lost track of their contact in the plantation and offer a blind eye to Kelly and Angie’s past crimes if they take down the operation. They go undercover and befriend fellow prisoner Marcie (Trina Parks), and give the side-eye to Serena (Jayne Kennedy), the well-treated prisoner/right hand woman to Monteiro. Things start off bad when they realize Sandra has ALSO run away from the prison camp before they arrived! Things get worse when they realize the horror of the camp and the difficulty of escape.

This was a fun, fast-paced B-movie. It starts off with more energy than most women-in-prison pictures. Usually, they follow one character committing or getting caught up in a simple crime, or even just start with them already in jail. Here we start out with our ladies kicking ass with their pirate crew. They aren’t forced into or taking a fall for a crime, they do this shit with style and a smile. When they notice a rival crew muscling into their territory, they immediately take the fight to them. Then Kelly and Angie actively choose to go into the prison on a rescue mission. Sure, that seems to be the beginning and end of their plan, but they got moxie! I would honestly be more excited to just watch a movie about their pirate adventures, but at least it adds some flavor before getting into the standard women in prison business (and provides another faction in Turko's crew to add to the chaos during the climax).

Considering this is a 1970s Blaxploitation/women in prison flick, it is surprisingly low on sleaze and sadism. Ms. Bell takes two brief bosom bathing breaks, otherwise there is no nudity. Angie and Kelly DO rock plenty of sexy sweaters, though, with titillatingly tight turtlenecks clinging to their curves. Kelly is also the target of an attempted assault, but it is quickly stopped, so this extremely low on the rape-y scale for the women in prison genre. The violence is soft-R, with some bloody gunshots but most of the prison camp brutality off-camera or depicted with simple but effective imagery of the aftereffects (the woman hanging by her hair). Fights consist of sloppy seventies movie “martial arts” with lots of unnecessary flipping. You could play a drinking game every time you spot the stunt man in an afro wig subbing for Ms. Bell, but you might get alcohol poisoning. Ms. Katon’s character is far less acrobatic, and she seems to throw most of her own punches and kicks. Gun fights are also served up sloppy seventies style without much in the way of clear geography or choreography. Of course, those guns immediately become ineffective when held on our heroes at close range. When the script can’t figure out an escape plan it just moves the bad guys close enough to get the guns kicked out of their hands and start brawling. Dialogue is mostly functional, occasionally colorful in a fun way, occasionally clumsy in need of a second draft. For example, during the robbery someone replies to someone, “They aren’t women, they’re pirates!” but the previous line did not reference them being women. Apart from that and the attempted assault scene, the movie doesn’t make a huge deal out of its bad-ass leads being ladies. A brief possible origin story is presented by Kelly, she came out to that part of the world on a shady job offer to man a rich guy’s boat, he died, she took the boat and got into piracy. Also, the only real mentions of race are in conversations between the Black women themselves (most pointedly when Angie calls Serena a “house n*****” since she trades collaboration for comfort).

When I watched Ebony, Ivory & Jade on Amazon it was a garbage quality transfer that became nearly incomprehensibly dark and muddy at the end. Shudder has a great looking transfer of The Muthers. I see the always dependable Vinegar Syndrome did a blu-ray release a few years ago so that must be the source. Even ignoring the difference in video quality, this movie looks a lot better than E, I & J. There is a brief shot of the Muthers’ boat moving across the water in front of a sunset that is nicer than anything in the previous movie. Action directing is improved also, moving close to the realm of competent. The pacing is much smoother, and the story beats are less repetitive.

When the credits rolled, I thought, “I bet Quentin Tarantino LOVES this movie.” Sure enough, the wiki page has a quote from him: "So why is this cruddy little flick one of my favorite movies? It's the playful execution of a preposterous story that's the key to the film's charm." Tarantino is more enthusiastic than most (all?) people about this kind of trash cinema. After all, he liked the terrible E, I & J enough to reference it in multiple films, and he screened the sub-par The Swinging Cheerleaders (also starring Rosanne Katon) at his first film festival, but in this case, I agree with the sentiment. After this one I am willing to check out some more stuff from Santiago’s prolific filmography. My crush on Rosanne Katon has also intensified to the point that I want to seek out every movie she has been in, no matter how crappy looking. Anyone got a DVD of Chesty Anderson U.S. Navy I can borrow?