Once upon a time, way back in the mid-1970s, some guy in Dallas, Texas, by the name of Bobby Davis, had some dollars in his pocket and a dream. That dream: to write, direct, and produce a blaxploitation flick. He roamed the lounges of Dallas, wading into a sea of nylon and leisure suits in search of the talent he would need to make his vision a reality. Days, nay, weeks, of production pass, and Davis overcomes all of the obstacles which stand in the way of auteurs the world over, and he gets his film in the can. Now, it’s official. Bobby Davis is a filmmaker, forever more. In celebration, and aware that all great artists leave the scene at their peak, he leaves his affairs in order, climbs the Reunion Tower overlooking picturesque Interstate 35E, and hurls himself into the void.
Most of that is bullshit, including Davis’s personal denouement (Reunion Tower wasn’t finished until 1978, three years after this movie’s release). But, sources on this dog of a movie are very thin. It’s known that there was a filmmaker named Bobby Davis, that he shot a film called Bad, Black and Beautiful in Dallas, and that he employed a cast and crew that, for the majority of them, had no experience before or after this film was made. If it wasn’t for the internet, this movie would exist only on crumbling VHS tapes and a handful of 35mm prints lurking in the backs of storage spaces. This is a movie that was well on its way to being lost, and it shows. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Bad, Black and Beautiful”
Marlene Schmidt was on top of the world after winning the Miss Universe pageant in 1961. She later married TV cowboy Ty Hardin and moved to sunny California. The marriage did not last, but sometime thereafter she got the shitty movie bug, and teamed up with her new husband, Iraqi-born auteur Howard Avedis, to produce some hilarious sleaze. We here at Missile Test salute her and Howard, both. Immigrants living the American dream. Sure, they could never break into the big time, but everyone knows the fringes of the party are the best place to be.
I knew nothing about this film when I began watching it. I found it on a YouTube channel that collects old grindhouse and drive-in movies that have fallen into the public domain. That copy was crap, but being in the public domain meant that the film could be found elsewhere. Amazon Prime has a much better quality copy, so should one actually want to seek out and watch this turd, I recommend doing so on Amazon.