Badmovies.org Forum

Let me set the scene: I'd been drinking shots of W. T. Weller bourbon and decided to watch a movie. I stumbled across this thing on a Roku channel called Fandor (Rev. Powell, this is a very good reason for you to drop the money on a Roku as I think you would enjoy their selection.)

So I start watching this, planning on some low-budget "blaxploitation" fun. Oh, hell no, I get a movie with a split personality. It is obviously 2 different movies that some moron threw together to try to make a buck or two. The linking shots show two guys who both desert the military in the middle of Vietnam. Yes, they got the same white guy to do the linking shots, but someone should have noticed that his hair was longer in 1974 than when he shot his other movie in 1971.

Two guys who run from the war only to fall afoul two different crime groups as they try to escape to Canada. One of them is played by Dobie Gray. He should have stuck to music. The other guy is an escapee from a Spanish flick called Run For You Life (1971). Hijinks results in which you never see the two guys together except in secluded locations.

Well, it turns out that the "moron" I mentioned earlier is none other than the combo of Al Adamson and Samuel Sherman. I knew Al had to have his mitts all over this when I saw that it was an Independent International film. They took the 1971 movie they bought, spliced in some new footage to make it acceptable to American drive-ins and shoved it out to make whatever money it could.

Dopey and lame are a couple of words that come to mind to describe this film. Half the fun is watching for the new footage as it looks utterly unlike the footage from the earlier film. Then you have Dobie Gray. Poor man. I wonder if he WANTED to do this, or if they just twisted his arm. He looks like a chunky Samuel Jackson with none of the acting ability. Still, worth a giggle or two.

Check out the cover art for the DVD, which has NONE of the cast:
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51TPWVXKETL.jpg)

Here's the trailer, in case you are interested:

Mean Mother (1974) - Movie Trailer - Blaxploitation Movie Trailers (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-RLLUmCrw0#)

I bought a VHS copy of this in the late 1990s (or so).  At one point, the audio cut out and there was a long portion of silence on the tape.  I brought it back to the store and exchanged it for another copy.  Same problem.  They must have produced a large batch of defective copies.  I returned the second copy and never bought another one.  However, I do clearly remember that the scenes in "Vietnam" looked like they were filmed in a forest in Connecticut and the army uniforms looked like they were purchased at a surplus store.

By the way, the cover art on the VHS box looked like a 1970s blaxploitation movie.  It was not the same cover shown in the picture above.

(http://i43.tower.com/images/mm107345299/mean-mother-clifton-brown-vhs-cover-art.jpg)

Hey, a shout out!

I got the Roku but I don't subscribe to Fandor. They do have a nice lineup of cult films, though. I have subscribed to Hulu on and off.