For Better or Werts : TV Worth Watching

WEIRD & WILD: Blaxploitation biker chicks

Sleazy, cheesy, cheap and surreal -- gimme more TCM Underground!

Friday's late-night showcase for low-budget exploitation flicks gets some fresh meat from Turner Classic Movies with the delirious blaxploitation musical biker flick Darktown Strutters (Friday night at 2 a.m. ET, TCM).

I've never seen it, but Cinebeats has, and the rundown here has me drooling with antici-pation: Stylish Watts women take on the KKK and a clone king, while looking entirely too fab riding their multicolor machines. Rev up the DVR for a movie that "must be seen to be believed." (See some here.)

Following Darktown Strutters on the bill late Dec. 18/early Dec. 19 is Thank God It's Friday (3:45 a.m. ET, TCM), disco diva Donna Summer's 1978 showcase, co-starring such big names as Valerie Landsburg and Terri Nunn. (Look close for early work from Jeff Goldblum and Debra Winger, who I'm sure would rather not be reminded.)

TCM Underground takes a hiatus next week (pre-empted for a Sherlock Holmes festival), but January promises cheap thrills like the 1969 LSD saga The Big Cube (with Lana Turner!) and Jerzy Skolimowski's '70s double feature Deep End and The Shout. Also expect witchcraft, Satanism, female crime gangs and Blue Velvet. Be there or be square.

1 Comments

Patrick said:

I actually saw (or was dragged to see) "Thank God It's Friday" in the movies; it was called "disco drivel" at the time. Terri Nunn turned to music, as the lead singer of the band "Berlin." You may remember their huge hit, "Take My Breath Away," from the "Top Gun" soundtrack, in 1986. (I've always hated Donna Summer's song "Last Dance", and when I got married in 1988, I ordered the band we hired not to play it.)

December 17, 2009 11:05 AM

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Diane Werts has been glued to the tube since she can remember, growing up in a household where the TV came on first thing in the morning and stayed on till bedtime and beyond. She worked for the USA Film Festival, then for The Dallas Morning News writing about everything from Shakespeare to macrame art to rock music (and has the hearing loss to prove it). She moved to New York's Newsday to edit their glossy TV magazine, then returned to writing about television, specializing in its stranger permutations. She's a past president of the Television Critics Association.

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