I love the plot keywords listed for the film Black Sister’s Revenge (1976) aka Emma Mae on The Internet Movie Database…Hit In Crotch, Racial Slur, Independent Film, Blaxploitation…not much, but you had me at `Hit In Crotch’. Written, produced, and directed by Jamaa Fanaka (Penitentiary, Penitentiary II, Street Wars), the film features a cast of relative unknown performers, many in their only screen role, including Jerri Hayes, Eddie Allen, Charles D. Brooks III (Soul Vengeance), Malik Carter (Black Belt Jones), and Ernest Williams II, whom some may remember in the pivotal role as `Customer’, from the television role “That’s My Mama”, specifically the episode titled “The Gun”…give me a break, as I had not a lot to work with here…
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Jerri Hayes play Emma Mae, a young woman from rural Mississippi (or `Sippi’ as was referred to in the film) who has come to L.A. (Compton to be exact) live with her aunt and her family after the passing of Emma Mae’s mother. As Emma Mae gets off the bus, her cousins look at her like she’s some sort of alien, as the chick is pure corn pone, if you know what I mean. Anyway, her cousins reluctantly let Emma Mae tag along as they go to the local college student union, and the joint is jumping. Her cousins try to set her up, but there are no takers. Emma Mae does eventually catch the eye of a local hoodlum and pill pusher named Jesse (Williams II) after she beats the tar out of his weasely friend named Zeke (Brooks III), earning the respect of her peers (seems Zeke was more vocal than the others in terms of her funky appearance, to which Emma Mae laid a few smacks upside his head). Emma Mae ends up falling hard for Jesse who eventually has an altercation with The Fuzz, goes into hiding (call me mint jelly baby, cause I’m on the lam), eventually gets popped and thrown into the can, the joint, the slammer, the hoosegow, the pen, the tank, the cooler, the jug, the cooler, the brig…what I’m trying to say is he was committed to a house of correction. Anyway, being smitten with the lug, Emma Mae gets the locals together to raise money to hire a lawyer to defend Jesse and Zeke, as they work out a deal to open a carwash on an unused property. Things are going well, so well, in fact that The Man takes notice and shuts them down (some BS zoning laws), to which Emma Mae and a couple of others resort to robbing a bank…they get away, use the money to get Jesse and Zeke out on bail, but then Jesse ends up two-timing Emma Mae (turns out he was only using her the whole time), to which she retaliates by putting her foot square into Jesse’s behind, among other places…
I learned a lot of things from this movie, the first being you don’t want to disrespect a country girl with nappy hair, because if you do, she’ll have no problem in dishing out a country beating (particularly in working over your jewels, if you’re a male). I also learned some new terms, like fender benders…this is used to describe pills that, if you take, and then drive a car, they’ll make you crash into things causing you to bend your fender. Also, an `ugmug’ is an unattractive person (I think the word is actually a combination of two words, ugly and mug). And if you really want to disrespect someone, you can call him or her `armadillo ugly’…another thing, I didn’t realize wearing overalls without a shirt was such a predominant fad in the mid 70s…interesting look. All right, as far as the film goes, it was interesting, but one should keep in mind the cast is made up of inexperienced performers, so a lot of the acting really isn’t all that good, but the effort, for the most part, was there, and that counts for something with me. The story moves along pretty well, but it does get bogged down occasionally as a character experiences a verbose, moment of drama meant, I think, to appeal to the audience the trials and tribulations of the disenfranchised African American community. Emma Mae has a few of these scenes, along with another character named Big Daddy, played by Carter. Big Daddy was kind of a weird guy in that he wore traditional African attire, a sheik headdress, full gray bread, mumbles to himself, and had a militant attitude. There’s one scene where he speaks about a number of things including the evils of whitey, the ironic plight of brothers killing each other over turf which they don’t even own, and the need for African Americans to get up off their collective behinds and take what they can from The Man. Some of the sequences didn’t seem to be related to the story, but were fun to watch, nonetheless, one in particular being when Jesse and Zeke were eating crab and hitching a ride, finally getting picked up by some acquaintances. That crab looked nasty, and they were eating parts of it I don’t think you’re supposed to eat. All in all this was an odd, low budget, independent drama with blaxploitation underpinnings, displaying some pretty shabby acting through and through, but it does feature some effort (in my opinion), along with a bit of heart (or soul, if you prefer), and possibly worth checking out if only to watch the last five minutes when the character of Emma Mae performs her rendition of The Nutcracker Suite…
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The fullscreen picture (1.33:1) on this Xenon Pictures DVD does show signs of age, but overall, looks relatively decent and certainly watchable. The audio comes through relatively well, but I’m not really sure what format it’s presented in…there are chapter stops, and a number of previews for other DVD releases including Bad Attitude (1993), Black Godfather (1974), Dolemite (1975), Penitentiary (1979), Soul Survivor (1995), and Sweetback (1971).
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By the way, someone was asking about the music played during the final credits…the song, titled Theme from Emma Mae (Long to be Back Home), was arranged by HB Barnum (who also did the scoring for the film), and performed by Keisa Brown, and released as a 45 back in 1976 on the Los Angeles label Marsel Records.
Here in Austin, TX, we’ve the Alamo Draft House, a local Cinema that not only shows big name flicks but also shows underrated and lesser-known shows, as well. Every Wednesday is “Weird Wednesday,” in which they show a campy, B-grade film, usually from the seventies, at midnight. “Black Sister’s REvenge” was by far the best Wierd Wednesday flick we’ve ever seen– the only to get a standing ovation! That fight sene at the end is CLASSIC. This movie is absolutley hysterical.
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