**1/2 (out of ****)
Starring Robbie Lee, Joanne Nail, Monica Gayle, Asher Brauer, Chase Newhart, and Marlene Clark.
Directed by Jack Hill, & written by Hill, F.X. Maier, and John Prizer.
1975 R
“Switchblade Sisters” is a bad movie, but the badness is frequent and funny enough that I was almost never bored. Director Jack Hill has created a film that is more-or-less technically competent, from the camerawork to the low-budget effects to the art and set direction, but the story is laughable and the performances border on the ludicrous. “Switchblade Sisters” is not a movie in which you care about the characters, the outcome, or the storyline. Like the work of Ed Wood, you just laugh at how crappy it is, and you have a good time. It’s no fun to see without your friends because then there’s no one to hear your clever comments.
The tagline of “Switchblade Sisters,” I’ve just found out, is “so easy to kill, so hard to love.” Urban gang warfare is the subject of “Switchblade Sisters,” specifically a newly-formed girl gang and the power struggle within it. The running joke is how the characters, all teenagers, commit every kind of crime and destruction, yet the consequences are always underplayed in deadpan. At one point one gang ambushes another at a roller rink and about a dozen men and women are mercilessly gunned down. Later, when a cop questions the Sisters about what happened, he says “I heard some people got beat up at the roller rink.” In an earlier scene the leader of the Sisters attacks a man in an elevator and starts a fight at a hamburger stand. Her punishment after being fingered for both crimes is to spend only a night in jail, because she’s a minor. Every possible crime seems to be crammed into “Switchblade Sisters,” from prostitution to rape, and there’s wall-to-wall misogyny from the male gang-bangers toward their women. I think some urban communists are thrown in just for good measure, and that’s where they get the armor-plated stationwagon for the big shoot-out near the end. Think of it as the botched bank robbery from Michael Mann’s “Heat” re-made by grade-schoolers.
“Switchblade Sisters” was made in the 1970s and features all walk of wide lapels, bell bottoms, and plaid trousers. The women parade around like streetwalkers and the men are in competition to see whose shirt can be opened the lowest. The actresses and actors, for all their lack of talent, perform with no shortage of energy, and seem almost to be making up the script as they go along.
Quentin Tarantino, of “Pulp Fiction” and “Reservoir Dogs” fame, has rolled “Switchblade Sisters” out as part of his digitally-remastered Rolling Thunder series, first in theaters, then on VHS and DVD. The series focuses on forgotten films of the ‘70s that influenced his brilliantly skewed take on pop culture and modern crime dramas. The best way to appreciate “Switchblade Sisters” is on DVD, accompanied by an audio commentary where Tarantino is joined by director Jack Hill in half-appreciating, half-ridiculing the film. There are also a slew of trailers for other, equally ridiculous films in the Rolling Thunder series, including “Detroit 9000” and about a jillion movies with Pam Grier.
Bad movies are an acquired taste. If you haven’t acquired it, “Switchblade Sisters,” with its quick pace and utter lack of subtly, is a good place to start. But don’t worry if it’s a taste you never acquire.
Finished June 16, 2002
Copyright 2002 Friday & Saturday Night