Black Shampoo (1976) (NTSC)

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General		Extras
Category	Action Comedy	Audio Commentary-Director Greydon Clark Interviews-Cast-John Daniel’s 2005 Telephone Interview (31:44) Deleted Scenes-x 5 (5:52) Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	1976
Running Time	84:32 (Case: 82)
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Greydon Clark
Studio Distributor	Gryphon Entertainment	Starring	John Daniels Tanya Boyd Skip E Lowe Gary Allen Joe Ortiz Jack Mehoff
Case	Amaray-Opaque
RPI	?	Music	Gerald Lee

Video (NTSC)		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Linear PCM 48/16 2.0 mono
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	480i (NTSC)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

     Mr Jonathan (John Daniels) is tall, muscular, black and irresistible to women; he owns and runs Mr Jonathans, a very popular hairdressing salon on the Sunset Strip where he employs two very gay hairdressers, Artie (Skip E Lowe) and Richard (Gary Allen). In his private room Jonathan provides extra special services to wealthy women clients and he even finds time to make house calls where he encounters the randy teenage daughters of one of his clients. Things are going very well for Jonathan and he has a new, sexy receptionist in Brenda (Tanya Boyd). But Brenda until recently had been the girlfriend of mobster Mr Wilson (Joe Ortiz) and he is not going to let her go easily. Wilson sends some of his goons led by Maddox (Jack Mehoff) to the salon to get Brenda back and matters quickly escalate; the salon is trashed and Artie injured. Jonathan and Brenda hide out in his cabin in the woods, but when Wilson and his men come calling Jonathan decides it is time to fight back. The love machine becomes a killing machine!

     Black Shampoo is a Blaxploitation film made in 1976 by writer / director Graydon Clark who had a number low budget exploitation films to his credit including Tom (1973), Satan’s Cheerleaders (1977) and Skinheads (1989). Black Shampoo was made for $50,000 and was filmed in two weeks, the scenes on Sunset Strip being shot without permits.

     The low budget shows: the sets are cheap, the dialogue wooden (there are a few good, b****y lines but there was obviously not time for multiple takes so hesitations and chunky delivery are left in), there are a lot of long sequences of John Daniels driving around, the trashing of the salon goes on forever and there is a sequence at a gay / nude western style BBQ that has nothing to do with anything except to show off some female nudity. Not that there is anything wrong with that: in Black Shampoo the females need no excuse to strip off and display full frontal nudity (although to be fair John Daniels also fully strips off) and Tanya Boyd spends the entire climax of the film running around in only a shirt, which gapes at the front, and no knickers. But who’s complaining. There are a number of sex scenes in Black Shampoo. They are more tastefully shot and more erotic than most low budget exploitation films boast, certainly due to cinematographer Dean Cundy (who replaced Michael J Mileham after one day of shooting). Cundy had a stellar career, lensing over 90 films including the Back to the Future trilogy (1985, 1989, 1990), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), for which he was nominated for an Oscar, and Jurassic Park (1993).

     Black Shampoo is very 1970s with campy homosexual men as hairdressers, big hair, flares, a large, muscular black man as a sex machine and a funky soundtrack. The stars look good, dressed and undressed, nudity abounds and the violence is quite brutal, including action with a chain saw and a billiard cue plus the use of a curling wand that does not meet the manufacturer’s specifications. The film is cheap and silly and is not PC, but Black Shampoo is very out there, entertaining and a heap of fun, a perfect way to relive the joys of 1970s!

Video

     Black Shampoo is presented in a NTSC print in aspect ratio of 1.78:1, the original ratio being 1.85:1, and is 16x9 enhanced.

     For a film made 40 years ago on a low budget the print looks pretty good, although the lack of a budget shows. The image is soft and there is regular glare off white clothing or motor vehicles while shadow detail is somewhat indistinct. Colours are natural, if not vibrant, blacks however are fine, skin tones, and there is lots of skin of various shades, natural. Brightness and contrast varied a bit but are generally OK.

     There are regular small flecks, and a couple of bigger marks, on the print but nothing serious or distracting. There is also some ghosting with movement against trees.

    There are no subtitles.

     I did not notice a layer change.

Video Ratings Summary

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Shadow Detail
Colour
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Audio

     Audio is English LPCM 2.0 mono at 1536 Kbps.

     The dialogue clear and easy to hear. Obviously there is no surround use and the effects, such as the gunshots or the engines, lacked depth. The main use of the audio was the funky score by Gerald Lee, which was augmented by a couple of songs (which were repeated) by a Motown type female group The Gerald Lee Singers plus one by Roland Bautiste.

     Lip synchronisation is fine.

     The film was originally shown in the theatre with mono sound, which the DVD audio reflects.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
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Subwoofer
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Director’s Commentary

     Director Greydon Clark talks a little about various things but there are plenty of silences and very little technical information about shooting a low budget film. He does talk a bit about Blaxploitation films, his stars, locations and how Dean Cundy become the film’s cinematographer. Intermittently interesting.

John Daniels 2005 Telephone Interview (31:44)

     An entertaining audio interview with Daniels recorded in 2005 while film clips, on set and other stills plus promotional stills are shown on the screen. Daniels is proud of the film and remembers the people involved, including Greydon Clark, Tanya Boyd and Dean Cundy with affection, while also talking about the costumes, doing his own stunts, fame and balancing his film career and music business. He is a humorous speaker and also states he is more than happy with the Blaxploitation label put onto Black Shampoo.

Original Theatrical Trailer (1:59)

Deleted Scenes (5:52)

     Five deleted scenes, without sound. All but the last are from the Western BBQ sequence.

     The Region 1 US release of Black Shampoo includes the same extras as our Region All NTSC version but adds some text interviews that first appeared in Cashiers du Cinemart, biographies and a photo gallery. We do get the bulk of the decent extras, so I doubt the film is worth importing.

     A black stud hairdresser, sex, nudity, bored housewives with randy daughters, camp homosexuals, a crime boss, violence with a chain saw and a billiard cue and a funky score; what’s not to like! Black Shampoo is definitely non-PC, but it is a heap of fun and a guilty pleasure.

     The video and audio are acceptable for film made on a low budget 40 years ago. The extras are surprisingly good for such a film.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall