Black Mama White Mama aka Women in Chains (1973)

(On Cable TV, October 2022) The elevator pitch for exploitation thriller Black Mama White Mama is simple—Pam Grier in a women-in-prison film that turns into an exploitation remake of The Defiant Ones for the second act (what with a white escaped prisoner chained to a black escaped prisoner) that turns into a revolutionary uprising film in the third act. While that does sound interesting, you may want to temper your expectations for the final result, because (this being a low-budget early-1970s film), it’s all meant to be slightly grimy, repellent and downbeat in the end. This doesn’t mean it’s not interesting—the story (co-written by future Oscar-winner Jonathan Demme) plays with themes of female camaraderie in the face of male violence and black power in dealing with white oppressors. Predictably, Grier is a delight to watch here—even if the film falls short of her better-known titles of the early 1970s. Compared with other women-in-prison movies of the same era, it’s clear that Black Mama White Mama has far bigger ambitions—all the way to a revolutionary uprising and sympathy for the downtrodden when it literally breaks out of jail. The visual metaphors that drive the plot may be crude, but they’re still more high-minded than most similar movies. And yet, in the end, it doesn’t quite manage to become fun: part of this has to do with the sleazy aftertaste left by Philippine-shot exploitation filmmaking, the other part being an ending that—in keeping with the tone of the times—refuses the possibility of a happy conclusion. It’s watchable, but don’t expect too much.