Late, great grind-house trash movie-maker Al Adamson takes a stab at the blaxploitation genre -- and, surprisingly, the net result rates a cut or so above the norm, meaning that what we got here is a genuinely solid 70's drive-in black action opus. Former gridiron great Timothy Brown (whose other B-picture credits include "Bonnie's Kids," "The Dynamite Brothers," the Filipino women-in-prison potboiler "Sweet Sugar," and the third Cheri Caffaro "Ginger" feature "Girls Are for Loving") ain't half bad as rough'n'tough streetwise Las Vegas cop Kicks Carter, who's determined to get the goods on a fancy hotel operation which serves as a front for all kinds of illicit and illegal activities (gambling, bribery, gun-running, prostitution, y'know, the usual spit-in-the-face-of-both-the-law-and-morality kind of nasty stuff). The villains of this particular piece are an enjoyably vile pack of vicious down'n'dirty subhuman vermin: the ever-dependable Russ Tamblyn slimes it up delightfully as Ziggy, a brutish, loutish, obnoxious loan shark and nightclub manager (check out the scene where Ziggy gleefully beats a guy up with a sledgehammer and then crushes the dude's legs by running them over with a car!); Darlene Anders oozes coolly understated menace as the motel's evil, predatory lesbian owner, and J.C. Wells shows substantial smooth, slimy, sinister style as Guido, a bald, flinty, very business-like gangster who specializes in selling ill-gotten firearms. On the fetching femme side we've got the supremely sexy'n'slinky Tanya Boyd of "Black Shampoo" and "Ilsa: Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks" fame as a feisty, snoopy TV reporter and love interest for Kicks. And then there's Al's always welcome space cadet wife Regina Carrol, looking unusually haggard and worn-out, but still acquitting herself passably as a melancholy lounge singer (Carrol even belts out the unexpectedly lovely and heart-rending downbeat ballad "No More Mail Until Tomorrow").
Under Al's uncharacteristically proficient direction (Adamson, by the way, can also be briefly glimpsed playing blackjack in a casino during a nifty montage sequence), "Black Heat" measures up as a perfectly agreeable and diverting little low-budget number: we've got typically sharp and crisp cinematography by the tireless Gary Graver, Paul Lewison cuts loose with a righteously grooving, get-down happening jazzy soul score, the gratuitous sex, profanity and violence level is suitably ample and explicit (the movie hits its scuzzy highlight when a disgusting bunch of greasy, grinning slobs cheerfully gang rape luckless compulsive gambler Jana Bellan after she loses a poker game to them and doesn't have any money to cover her loss), the action set pieces are pretty smoking (Carter and Ziggy's final no-holds-barred fisticuffs confrontation in a junkyard definitely hits the stirring spot), and both the hip, slang-ridden dialogue (the word "dig" is said a lot) and especially the gaudy, tacky, eye-wateringly ugly 70's clothes are every bit as laughably dated and ghastly as they ought to be. Granted, "Black Heat" sure ain't another "Shaft," but overall it still qualifies as an above average cops-and-criminals crime/action programmer from our ever-reliable Grade Z schlock flick pal Al. Rest in peace, Mr. Adamson.
Under Al's uncharacteristically proficient direction (Adamson, by the way, can also be briefly glimpsed playing blackjack in a casino during a nifty montage sequence), "Black Heat" measures up as a perfectly agreeable and diverting little low-budget number: we've got typically sharp and crisp cinematography by the tireless Gary Graver, Paul Lewison cuts loose with a righteously grooving, get-down happening jazzy soul score, the gratuitous sex, profanity and violence level is suitably ample and explicit (the movie hits its scuzzy highlight when a disgusting bunch of greasy, grinning slobs cheerfully gang rape luckless compulsive gambler Jana Bellan after she loses a poker game to them and doesn't have any money to cover her loss), the action set pieces are pretty smoking (Carter and Ziggy's final no-holds-barred fisticuffs confrontation in a junkyard definitely hits the stirring spot), and both the hip, slang-ridden dialogue (the word "dig" is said a lot) and especially the gaudy, tacky, eye-wateringly ugly 70's clothes are every bit as laughably dated and ghastly as they ought to be. Granted, "Black Heat" sure ain't another "Shaft," but overall it still qualifies as an above average cops-and-criminals crime/action programmer from our ever-reliable Grade Z schlock flick pal Al. Rest in peace, Mr. Adamson.