Movie Type: Juvenile Delinquency Film, Crime Thriller
Themes: Kids in Trouble, Street Gangs
Release Year: 1975
Country: US
Run Time: 90 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Exploitation auteur Jack Hill wrote and directed this wild, often satiric girl-gang movie, whose story is loosely (make that very, very loosely) based on Othello. The Silver Daggers are a gang of young hoods who control an inner-city high school, where they sell drugs and sex to the student body and fight anyone who gets in their way. The Daggers have a ladies' auxiliary, The Dagger Debs, who rumble just as hard as the men, but one day chief Dagger Deb Lace (Robbie Lee) meets her match in Maggie (Joanne Nail), a new kid who won't back down. When a scuffle lands Maggie and the Debs in jail for the night, Maggie comes to Lace's rescue, and Maggie becomes Lace's new right-hand woman. However, fellow Deb Patch (Monica Gayle) is jealous of Maggie's friendship with Lace, and begins spinning a web of deceit to destroy Lace's trust in the new deb. In the midst of the infighting, the Silver Daggers find their turf challenged by a rival gang who pose as a community action team, and the Debs join forces with a revolutionary political group. Kitty Bruce, Lenny Bruce's daughter, plays Doughnut, one of the Debs, and Marlene Clark plays a Mao-spouting revolutionary leader. This exploitation cult item gained a new life in 1996, when Quentin Tarantino, a big fan of director Hill, sponsored a theatrical re-release through his company Rolling Thunder Pictures. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
Switchblade Sisters is considered to be one of Jack Hill's crowning achievements by his fans and it is easy to see why; rarely has a B-movie been so funny, smart, or slyly subversive. The key to these unexpected attributes lies in the film's style, which uses a campy pop art approach that makes the viewer vulnerable to the ambitious themes that underpin the material. Jack Hill's clever script (co-written with F.X. Maier) delivers the exploitative goods while also working in subtle elements of leftist and feminist commentary into their story's stylized landscape. Note that all the male characters are portrayed as either weak or short-sighted and the all bastions of civilized society (schools, the police, the welfare system) are painted as hopelessly corrupt. Hill also turns in some fine work from the director's chair, infusing the film with a comic book-inspired visual style and deftly weaving unexpected dramatic moments into the film's otherwise campy tone to shake the audience up. Switchblade Sisters further benefits from performances that match the film's highly stylized tone. Joanne Nail and Robbie Lee deliver colorful performances in the leads, but it's Monica Gayle who steals the show with her wild-eyed, larger-than-life turn as Patch. The end result isn't Shakespeare and is definitely too over-the-top for anyone not experienced with drive-in movies, but its delirious style and politically charged undertones make it an ideal choice for anyone interested in the high points of drive-in cinema's last golden age. ~ Donald Guarisco, All Movie Guide
Cast
Bill Adler - Fingers; Marlene Clark - Muff; Monica Gayle - Patch; Kate Murtagh - Mom Smackley; Joanne Nail - Maggie; Don Stark - Hook; Asher Brauner - Dominic; Janice Karman - Bunny; Kitty Bruce - Donut; Robbie Lee - Lace
Credit
Geno Havens - Casting, Jodie Lynne Tillen - Costume Designer, Don Heitzer - First Assistant Director, Jack Hill - Director, Mort Tubor - Editor, Jeff Begun - Executive Producer, Frank Moreno - Executive Producer, Les Baxter - Composer (Music Score), Medusa - Composer (Music Score), Chuck Day - Songwriter, Richard Person - Songwriter, Beala Neel - Production Designer, Robinson Royce - Production Designer, Stephen M. Katz - Cinematographer, John Prizer - Producer, Don Jones - Sound/Sound Designer, John Prizer - Screenwriter, F.X. Maier - Screenwriter, Jack Hill - Screenwriter, Randall Robinson - Assistant Camera
