The Black Gestapo

It's interesting to note that as the general of this black power movement becomes determined to start "The Black Gestapo", his face turns bright red, almost like a devil. You certainly can understand the anger that the Watts community feels to white mobsters extorting money from them and keeping them from making success in their own community. They won't live in peace until these mobsters are taken care of, but then they turn around and become just as bad, possibly even worse than what they had before. The point of film makes is well intended. The execution of it however isn't at all well done. It's crude, tasteless, one-dimensional from both sides for the most part, and definitely agenda driven. I've seen a dozen or so of these blaxploitation films of the 1970's, and most of them had a fairness in showing a mixture of races fighting for equality and not in a way that was pandering. The violence shows no mercy, some sequences truly repulsive to even imagine. The acting is even worse with everybody screaming, thinking that it's emoting. The filming is even worse. It looks like the most wretched of 60's drive-in movies, barely watchable with its tinny sound and blury photography. But the bottom line is it really serves no purpose other than for the filmmakers to unleash some anger and really do little to help any tensions that are out there. Watching it today is horrifying because the characters who start off simply trying to defend their hood end up being extreme hypocrites, bloodthirsty not just for revenge but for the sake of just seeing carnage wherever they can get it. All that it goes to prove is that a thug is nothing more than a stupid bully regardless of race, and the way it presents humanity in this film makes you wish we can hit a reset button. This is not entertainment.

source: The Black Gestapo

Moviecut—The Black Gestapo

**SPOILERS** With crime out of control young and charismatic Gen. Ahmed, a Swahili name he took for himself, forms this neighborhood self-defense and watch-dog organization "The Ghetto Warriors" to do the job that the police are either unable or unwilling to do. The major reason for the crime wave in the neighborhood, Watts L.A, is the local Mafia headed by mob boss Don Vincent who's hoods got the people living in fear in and outside their homes. Shaking down local businessmen for protection money and pushing both drugs and hookers, who are addicted to drugs, on the local population has made life almost impossible for the people in the neighborhood. It's when Gen. Ahmed's second in command Col. Kojah takes over the field operations of "The Ghetto warriors" that things go sour for everyone, the Mafia as well as the local population, in the neighborhood. Stayling himself after Adolph Hitler Col. Kojah use the power that Gen. Ahmed gave him to form a sub-rosa para-military organization styled after the notorious Nazi secret police the dreaded Gestapo! The Black Gestapo in no time at all have the Mafia on the run knocking off their top honcho's, Vito & Earnest, and having Don Vincent, hair-piece and all, check out of Watts and head for what he considers to be a safer place for him to do business Harlem in New York City. It takes a while for Gen. Ahmed to realize what his right-hand man Col. Kojah is doing behind his back. Col. Kojah is not really involved in helping those in the neighborhood but instead he's shaking them down and pushing drugs on them. The people now fed up with what Col. Kojah and his Black Gestapo is doing to their neighborhood fire bomb the local drug detoxification clinic run by Dr. Lisk and Gen. Ahmed's girlfriend Nurse Marsha. Gen. Amhed who was busy with other things, like doing interviews with the local TV networks and radio talk-shows, finally realizes what Col. Kojah has been doing all this time. It's now up to Gen. Ahmed to put a stop to what Col. Kojah and his top crony Capt. Delmay have been doing to the neighborhood, pushing drugs prostitution and shaking down businesses. But with Gen. Ahmed all alone with his men now under Col. Kojah & Capt. Delmay's control it may well be too late not only for him but for the people of Watts! Mind bowing final with Gen. Ahmed leading an army of one, himself, against the Black Gestapo and hitting them where they live: Their home base of operations. Not letting numbers deter him the General, after being shot and left for dead by the Black Gestapos, using what he learned in Vietnam as a member of the US Special Forces puts an end to Col. Kojah's mad dreams of power and conquest. With his army of Black Gestapos now either wiped out or in full retreat Col. Kojah is down to having it out with, one on one, his former boss Gen. Ahmed. This all ends with both the General and Colonel struggling for control not for the city of L.A. but for a water logged and rusted rifle at the bottom of Col. Kojah's swimming pool!

A group of black people start a "people's army" in order to stop white mafia crime and shakedowns in their neighborhood. Anyone familiar with "Animal Farm" knows the chain of events. Some in the army have gestapo style uniforms while others wear Boy scout khakis with cute red berets. The year is 1975 and it is dated becoming camp at times. Guide: F-word, sex, rape, and 4 stars for the FF nudity (Donna Young, Uschi Digard, Angela Brent) Available on many multi-packs.

This film begins with some black men forming a group known as "the People's Army" with the intention of helping the citizens in their local community of Watts. To do that their leader, "General Ahmad" (Rod Perry) has set up a medical clinic and a food store with a grant of money given to him by the governor of California. However, when some local white gangsters harass many of the people and eventually rape his girlfriend "Marsha" (Angela Brent) he finally concedes to the demands of his second-in-command "Colonel Kojah" (Charles Robinson) and allows him to set up a small security force to protect the community as well. What General Ahmad doesn't realize, however, is that Colonel Kojah has a totally different agenda in mind and it is the exact opposite of the peaceful direction for which the People's Army was initially intended. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this movie was produced during a time when Blaxploitation films were increasingly popular. Some were good. Others--like this particular one--not so much as the script was extremely weak, the acting was poor and some of the scenes bordered on the ridiculous. That said, those familiar with this sub-genre might get some enjoyment out of this picture but even so it's not something that I would recommend and I have rated it accordingly. Below average.

In the 1970s, blaxploitation cinema produced a bumper crop of instantly disposable films. Despite its intriguing title, "The Black Gestapo" was one of them. To protect the people of Watts from an encroaching Mob presence, General Ahmed (Rod Perry) forms an inner-city People's Army. After a nurse friend of Ahmed's is brutalized by mob enforcers, the general authorizes his second-in-command, Colonel Kojah (Charles Robinson), to form and train a protection squad out of the normally non-violent army. Their first order of business is to attack the head mob enforcer in his bathtub and cut his balls off with a straight razor. Kojah tells the newly-created eunuch, "Consider this a warning." The protection squad soon runs the Mob out of Watts, after which Kojah gets too big for his britches. He turns his reactive squad into proactive vigilantes who terrorize the very citizens the People's Army was formed to protect. Under Kojah's command, drug use and prostitution in Watts rises to an all-time high. To protect his people, General Ahmed now must go to war against the very army he himself created. THE BLACK GESTAPO fails on two levels: 1 - As a statement against organized crime. For the first half of the film, it's the People's Army vs. the Mob, so we know who to root for. But once the People's Army drives the Mob out of Watts, it takes over their businesses. Now instead of white gangsters threatening the prostitutes, drug addicts and small-business owners of Watts, the black soldiers are doing it—in their brand new jet black, oh-so-Nazi-like uniforms. So it's "meet the new boss, same as the old boss" time. 2 – As a criticism of black-on-black violence. Not only does the People's Army under Kojah engage in violence against their own people, so does General Ahmed when he launches a one-man attack on the People's Army compound. He shoots and kills a good three dozen young black men, including Colonel Kojah. The screenplay had already abandoned its storyline of white-on-black violence, leaving it unresolved, and now does exactly the same thing for black-on-black violence. Once Ahmed kills Kojah, the film quickly ends, allowing no epilogue on how Watts might deal with the problems the movie so effectively raised. Granted, the film's creators were under no obligation to play peacemaker, but because they went for the quick buck, THE BLACK GESTAPO fell considerably short of its potential.

"Black Gestapo" (1975) is an exploitation film that manages to both rise above its material and sink beneath it. The film features a group of black men who call themselves the People's Army, funded by the state of California, who engage in acts of community goodwill. Unfortunately the local white mafia corrupts the community with drugs, gambling, and prostitution. A faction of the People's Army, enraged by the rape of black women and the violence against black men, take matters into their own hands. As a viewer, I must admit that I found these scenes of vengeance quite satisfying--and therein lies part of the film's power. The film raises questions and provides some troubling answers. We want to side with the peaceful solutions of the helpful People's Army, but we also want bloodshed--racial bloodshed. We feel conflicted. Sadly and predictably, the black avengers, after driving the white mafia from the area, become worse than the white mafia, running more drugs, more prostitution, more gambling. In a particularly painful scene, they beat a black storeowner because he doesn't make enough money to pay their protection prices. In the end, the peaceful general of the People's Army takes matters into his own hands and destroys the Black Gestapo. As I mentioned, while the film raises important questions about white exploitation of black poverty--and how blacks should respond to that exploitation--the film also falters as the viewer is overwhelmed by tawdry scenes of violence against women (usually naked), and one wonders if the director is interested in making a point or just peddling trash to the dumbest drive-in voyeur.

I really don't know what to think of this little piece of celluloid. At first, I kind of liked it. The black army group starts taking the streets back from the mafia hoods, they kill a couple of racists and even cut one guy's balls off. Then the movie, where it got it's title from, took a crazy turn. The off shoot of the black army group becomes the black gestapo headed by Mack from Night Court. I can accept the overall poor film quality and low production value (it is a budget film after all), but a black fascist group? I think they were trying to make a commentary about the problems of the inner-city and how there would be gangs (regardless of color) there to exploit the vices of the under privileged. But it still missed the mark by a lot. They could have done this quite a few other ways, for example having a black gang that isn't blatantly fascist. The movie wasn't that bad, but it still seemed to be a little confused.

Supposedly one of, or THE most mean-spirited/violent blaxsploitation flick (which I assume is the reason why it has such a low rating). Sounds like must-see-TV to this guy. TBG initially revolves around a group of black guys in uniform standing up to a bunch of white honkey's who are terrorizing their community. Well, this group of black guys, led by the bailiff from Night Court, turn themselves into a private army of lethal and brutal vengeance. But plans backfire as they eventually become what they despised and it's now up to the original guy in charge of the People's Army to set things right. Yeah! Anyways, this was a pretty good flick. Initially it started out very entertaining with oodles of racism by redneck jerks who were all in their own right laugh-out-loud funny. The director Lee Frost was especially good as the leader of the bad white guys. But as the story develops, it becomes a little less entertaining as the racism kinda fades away, and your left with black on black drama. Which isn't as entertaining in my book. But the movie still stays violent, and you also get to see some Uschi Digard boobies. In the wide world of blaxsploitation I think this flick is a must-see. Especially if you want to see a black dude call another black dude a 'jive-ass n-word'. Hell, I think they use the word 'Jive' like a couple dozen times. And that's a recipe for success in my book.