The Blaxploitation film genre of the early 1970s only lasted a relative few years but left moviegoers with a handful of truly charismatic action film stars including Jim Brown, Jim Kelly, and Fred Williamson.
Every once in a while, some producer or other would quite sensibly team up various combinations in new films. One of the first such was 1974’s Three the Hard Way, co-starring starred Slaughter, Black Belt Jones, and That Man Bolt!
Well, technically they were playing different characters, but we all know who they were meant to be.
Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink.
Three the Hard Way should have been the ultimate Blaxploitation movie. It’s directed by Gordon Parks, Jr., the man who directed one of the genre’s biggest successes, Superfly.
This film has some funky songs by The Impressions, the group once fronted by Curtis Mayfield, who had done the music for Superfly. We even have here Charles McGregor, who played the ill-fated Freddy in Superfly (as in the Curtis Mayfield song, “Freddy’s Dead.”). The problem, of course, is that Three the Hard Way is not Superfly.
While Superfly dealt with urban themes and realistic violence, this movie is more a comic book adventure, complete with a scene chewing white supremacist super villain with a secret base and his own (red cap wearing) private army. He’s played by character actor Jay Robinson, who would later be known as another super villain, Dr. Shrinker, on Saturday morning television.
If the audience-pandering theme of many blaxploitation flicks was “the brothers vs. whitey” (despite the fact that many were written and/or directed by white men), then the plot of this one must have felt perfect for all involved!
Our three super-cool heroes uncover an over-the-top plot by the white supremacists to poison the water in major cities with a substance that will kill ALL black people…and ONLY black people!
The picture’s leading lady is the lovely Sheila Frazier (also from Superfly!), and while her character is smarter and more resourceful than most action film females of the time, she’s still taken hostage early on and rarely seen again until the ending.
Three other women show up in a weirdly pointless scene, dressed, one each, in red, white, and blue, and riding corresponding color coordinated motorcycles (although you can see a male stuntman through the glass of one helmet. LOL). Turns out they’re The Princess, the Empress, and The Countess—a white woman, a black woman, and an Asian woman— apparently (it’s never explained in any detail) a trio of murderous dominatrixes (dominatrices?) hired by Williamson’s character to force a prisoner (Sanford and Son police officer, Hoppy) to talk. We never even find out what exactly they do to their prisoner. The whole scene slows the movie to a halt and seems to have been added purely as an excuse to show the three women topless and thus guarantee an R rating for this otherwise relatively bloodless flick that plays like a made-for-TV movie.
Brown was by far the best actor of the three stars, but he doesn’t have much to work with here. Williamson, still clean shaven at this early point, is as charismatic and handsome as ever, and martial artist Kelly, still riding on the success of 1973’s Enter the Dragon, is better served here than in his own earlier vehicle, Black Belt Jones. At least here it looks like his kicks and punches are actually hitting.
Unlike his famous photographer father (who directed Shaft), Parks, Jr. seems unsure as to how to light or frame scenes as much of the action in the film’s later scenes takes place in the dark and is tough to follow at times. Plotwise, the good guys just blow up a bunch of stuff at the climax until we end on a freeze frame, followed by the not particularly memorable Impressions theme over the closing credits as we watch our stars just walk around.
Although overall a disappointment compared to what it should have and could have been, there are a few good action scenes and any fan of ‘70s movies in general or blaxploitation films in particular won’t want to pass up the chance to see Brown, Williamson, and Kelly in their prime in this stunning restored Blu-ray.
Thus, we have a qualified…Booksteve recommends.
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