A fun blaxploitation-comedy-musical about the fortunes of a motorcycling black female vocal group as their leader, Syreena (Trina Parks,) investigates the disappearance of her mother, Cinderella (Frances Nealy).
Along the way, the sisters encounter Commander Louisville Cross (Norman Bartold) a racist, fast-food magnate who made his money with the ‘Sky Hog’ chain (“where the pork ribs are bone suckin’ good”) and looks like Colonel Sanders.
Cross is plotting to manipulate the black community for his own intentions by cloning their leaders.
Syreena leads the local black community in a siege of the Cross Foundation estate – a plantation in the middle of downtown Watts (Los Angeles) with slaves working a cotton field in the front yard – where they are met by Cross’ pig-men and his allies, the Ku Klux Klan.
Police cars have gigantic sirens, banks have large dollar bills for signs, and a litany of other oversized items give the film an intentionally cartoonish feel. Beneath the superficial layer of gaudy colours and slapstick humour, though, is a razor-sharp critique of race relations in America in the mid-1970s.
Released in some markets as Get Down and Boogie.
Syreena
Trina Parks Mellow
Roger E. Mosley Theda
Shirley Washington Miranda
Bettye Sweet Raunchy
Stan Shaw Carmen
Edna Richardson Wired
Christopher Joy V.D.
Otis Day Commander Louisville Cross
Norman Bartold Officer Tubbins
Charles Knapp Officer Emmo
Edward Marshall Officer Hugo
Dick Miller Officer Babel
Milt Kogan Flash
Gene Simms Philo Rasberry
Sam Laws Stuff
Frankie Crocker Lixie
Della Thomas Reverend S. Tilly
Ed Bakey Casabah Volt
Fuddle Bagley Cinderella
Frances Nealy Mrs Parasol
Barbara Morrison Six Bits
Raymond Allen Inspector Fallow
Charles Woolf Bo
Alvin Childress Lorelai
Zara Cully
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