a.k.a. Baby Needs a New Pair of Shoes
a.k.a. Get N— Rich on Number 666
Somewhere in Ohio, Italian Mafia stereotype Big Tony (Frank DeKova, "F Troop's" Chief Wild Eagle) tries to strongarm Pasha, a.k.a. Hakim (Paul Harris), out of the neighborhood numbers racket. Hakim kills one of Tony's goons, while the mayor starts raiding Hakim's operations. Near the end, Pasha strangles Big Tony in a vibrating massage chair, and beats him to death the butt of a gun.
The second-biggest "revelation" in the picture is that Sweetman (Reginald Farmer) — who gets gunned down in a phone booth by a couple of Pasha's dudes — was really working for Big Tony.
The biggest revelation is that Serene (Don Edmondson, a.k.a. Tawny Tan) — who has the most hilariously funny scene, laughing maniacally while stabbing a man to death in the throat with a stiletto (as in shoe, not knife) — is revealed to be a man in drag... as if you couldn't see that the very moment Serene first appeared onscreen.
Our take: Blaxploitation at its cheapest: Cringe-making dialogue, wooden performances by mostly unknown, mostly African-American actors you've never heard of before or since, continuity errors galore, and nonexistent production values, all thrown together on a budget of about 49 cents. For some reason (maybe because the director had access to a few vintage automobiles?), the story is set in 1956, while the characters' clothing, their hair, their dialogue, half the cars on the streets, and every brand label in a Mom-and-Pop grocery scream 1974. Is it worth it? Well, yes, because it's such a bizarre little obscurity, and a product of its time, the likes of which you'll never see again (for which you will probably be grateful).
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