Black Mama, White Mama
Encyclopedia
Black Mama, White Mama is a 1973 women in prison film with elements of blaxploitation
Blaxploitation
Blaxploitation or blacksploitation is a film genre which emerged in the United States circa 1970. It is considered an ethnic sub-genre of the general category of exploitation films. Blaxploitation films were originally made specifically for an urban black audience, although the genre's audience...

, starring Pam Grier
Pam Grier
Pamela Suzette "Pam" Grier is an American actress. She became famous in the early 1970s, after starring in a string of moderately successful women in prison and blaxploitation films such as 1974's Foxy Brown. Her career was revitalized in 1997 after her appearance in Quentin Tarantino's film...

 and Margaret Markov
Margaret Markov
Margaret Markov is an American film and television actress. She had a supporting role in the romantic drama The Sterile Cuckoo with Liza Minnelli and co-starred in There is No 13 , as well as appearing in other films.She was in the 1969 outlaw biker film Run, Angel, Run directed by Jack Starrett...

, and directed by Eddie Romero
Eddie Romero
Eddie Romero is an acclaimed and influential Filipino film director, film producer and screenwriter, considered one of the finest in the Cinema of the Philippines.Romero was named National Artist of the Philippines in 2003....

.

Plot

The action opens in a woman's prison, located on an island in the South Seas. Lee Daniels (Pam Grier
Pam Grier
Pamela Suzette "Pam" Grier is an American actress. She became famous in the early 1970s, after starring in a string of moderately successful women in prison and blaxploitation films such as 1974's Foxy Brown. Her career was revitalized in 1997 after her appearance in Quentin Tarantino's film...

) is the girlfriend of the island's biggest pimp and drug dealer, and she just ran off with $40,000.00USD of his money. Karen Brent (Margaret Markov
Margaret Markov
Margaret Markov is an American film and television actress. She had a supporting role in the romantic drama The Sterile Cuckoo with Liza Minnelli and co-starred in There is No 13 , as well as appearing in other films.She was in the 1969 outlaw biker film Run, Angel, Run directed by Jack Starrett...

) is a leading member of the local anarchist group. Lee and Karen are two of the newest inmates at an all-woman's penitentiary.

It's not too long before the Warden ships the pair off to another facility - where they are stopped in route by a group of Karen's fellow revolutionaries who are keen to free her. During the big gun battle, things go horribly wrong - the federals find reinforcements, the revolutionaries run, and Lee and Karen flee chained together. So begins their flight across the island. Each girl wants to go different directions - with Karen wanting to overthrow the government and Lee wanting to leave the island with her money - but they can't unlock their chains. Eventually, the two put aside their differences long enough to save their skins from the ogreish and murderous whoremaster. Meanwhile, hunting the pair is the lecherous Ruben (Sid Haig
Sid Haig
Sid Haig is a American actor. His roles have included acting in Jack Hill's blaxploitation films of the 1970s as well as his role as Captain Spaulding in Rob Zombie's horror films House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects...

) a displaced cowboy.

Cast

  • Pam Grier
    Pam Grier
    Pamela Suzette "Pam" Grier is an American actress. She became famous in the early 1970s, after starring in a string of moderately successful women in prison and blaxploitation films such as 1974's Foxy Brown. Her career was revitalized in 1997 after her appearance in Quentin Tarantino's film...

     — Lee Daniels
  • Margaret Markov
    Margaret Markov
    Margaret Markov is an American film and television actress. She had a supporting role in the romantic drama The Sterile Cuckoo with Liza Minnelli and co-starred in There is No 13 , as well as appearing in other films.She was in the 1969 outlaw biker film Run, Angel, Run directed by Jack Starrett...

     — Karen Brent
  • Sid Haig
    Sid Haig
    Sid Haig is a American actor. His roles have included acting in Jack Hill's blaxploitation films of the 1970s as well as his role as Captain Spaulding in Rob Zombie's horror films House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects...

     — Ruben
  • Lynn Borden
    Lynn Borden
    Lynn Borden is an American actress best known for her role as "Barbara Baxter" in the final season of the Shirley Booth sitcom Hazel, which aired on CBS from 1965 to 1966.-Background:...

     — Matron Densmore
  • Zaldy Zschornack
    Zaldy Zshornack
    José Rizaldy Zshornack was a Filipino actor. Zshornack had a long career spanning from the 1950s to the 1990s. He is perhaps best known for his role in Black Mama, White Mama, a 1973 film.-Personal life:...

     — Ernesto
  • Laurie Burton — Warden Logan
  • Eddie Garcia
    Eddie García
    Eddie Garcia popularly known as Manoy is a Filipino film actor and film director.- Biography :...

     — Captain Cruz
  • Alona Alegre
    Alona Alegre
    Alona Alegre is a Filipino actress who is the daughter of comedian actor Lou Salvador and LVN actress Inday Jalandoni. She is the younger sister of fellow actor Philip Salvador and the late Lou Salvador Jr.....

     — Juana
  • Dindo Fernando — Rocco
  • Vic Diaz
    Vic Díaz
    Vic Díaz is a Filipino former character actor who mostly portrayed villains. He is also the father of Teddy Diaz, the founding guitarist of the Filipino Rock band The Dawn. He appeared in Jack Hill's women in prison exploitation film "The Big Bird Cage," shot in the Philippines...

     — Vic Cheng
  • Wendy Green — Ronda
  • Lotis Key — Jeanette
  • Alfonso Carvajal — Galindo
  • Bruno Punzalan — Truck driver
  • Ricardo Herrero — Luis

Trivia

  • Several Volkswagen Country Buggies
    Volkswagen Country Buggy
    In 1967 Volkswagen Australasia Ltd. started with a project vehicle designed for Australia's rough conditions. This vehicle, designated Country Buggy or Type 197, was designed by project head Volkswagen Australasia's Managing Director Rudi Herzmer and VW Engineer Cyril Harcourt in VW Australia's...

     are used in the film; these were based on the VW Beetle chassis originally for the Australian market. The Country Buggy was locally produced in the Philippines
    Philippines
    The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

     as the Sakbayan using VW powerplants sourced from either Brazil or Mexico.
  • Part of the story involves a prison break with Grier and Markov escaping while chained together. This is partly an homage to the 1958 classic The Defiant Ones
    The Defiant Ones
    The Defiant Ones is a 1958 drama film which tells the story of two escaped prisoners, one white and one black, who are shackled together and who must co-operate in order to survive. It stars Tony Curtis, Sidney Poitier, Theodore Bikel, Cara Williams, Charles McGraw, and Lon Chaney, Jr...

    , with Sidney Poitier
    Sidney Poitier
    Sir Sidney Poitier, KBE is a Bahamian American actor, film director, author, and diplomat.In 1963, Poitier became the first black person to win an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Lilies of the Field...

     and Tony Curtis
    Tony Curtis
    Tony Curtis was an American film actor whose career spanned six decades, but had his greatest popularity during the 1950s and early 1960s. He acted in over 100 films in roles covering a wide range of genres, from light comedy to serious drama...

    .
  • An advertisement for the film including the tagline, "Chicks in chains... and nothing in common but the hunger of 1,000 nights without a man!"
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