User reviews

Make no mistake, "Street Sisters" (which I saw as "The Black Hooker") is a bad film. However, it does have enough bad elements to keep you curious enough (maybe) to sit through the whole thing.

One interesting thing is that the film is set in the 30's and 40's, with most of the actors still looking like they are from the 70's of course, especially hair-wise. The plot - a very attractive black hooker has a white son in "a bad way" (meaning from a john), wants nothing to do with her son, so she keeps the son on her parent's farm where grandma and grandpa raise him. Grandpa is a preacher but a pervert and a mean dude, grandma is very nice but she has an undisclosed bad past. The kid makes friends with a young black girl (why he shockingly pushes her from behind as she is running in a small brook who knows) and then all of a sudden it's the 40's, and the kid and his girlfriend are teens.

His girlfriend has a certain encounter with grandpa, prompting the son to leave home, and go find his hooker mom. He wants a relationship with her, but she still wants nothing to do with him. He goes off on his own and has a few "adventures." The last 15 minutes of this film gets real strange. The color tone of the film change for a little while and things get a little psychedelic. Some weird things happen and it all ends very suddenly and strangely.

The film is bad. There are plenty of odd close-ups and poor camera angles. Despite being set in the 30s and 40s, the music is still 70's porno funky. Makes you think maybe the film is indeed set in the 70's after all, but the few vehicles you actually see are all 30's cars. yeah right! There are some sequences where nothing happens at all, except to fill in the time with some utterly meaningless conversation between characters.

There is even one long and brutal beat down of one of mom's johns by a couple of guys (her pimp and his muscle?) that makes you wonder, what does this have to do with anything? There are early indications that the film will be about the white boy struggling to live in the "black world" due to his family and upbringing, but that's never touched upon after all. Mom though, as attractive and sexy as she is, is very much an unlikable selfish bitch to such a degree, the viewer can never feel anything for her at all.

This is definitely an interesting viewing experience but it isn't something you will want to watch again more than once most likely.

Well what can I say, this is a true Blaxpoitation film. To be honest I totally adore this genre and this movie hasn't changed it at all. Basically it follows a little white boy who is the son of a black hooker. (Go figure!) Anyway, he lives with his grandma and grandpa. The characters don not have any names at all, which only adds to the special ambience of the film. Everybody Should really check out the awesome psychedelic special effects of the burial scene! This movie is a real eye-opener! Blaxpoitation will never be the same!!

A very white, blond, blue-eyed, hippie-haired boy who looks kinda like 70s Joseph Bottoms is improbably born a trick baby to a hateful African-American prostitute/flapper (the initial period seems to be the 1920s) who leaves him to be raised by his loving grandma and hostile preacher grandpa on the farm while she carries on her evil ways in the Big City. As an adult, the Boy (none of these characters get names, emphasizing their archetypal melodrama nature) falls in love with a local black girl, whom out of the blue his pious grandpa decides to seduce. So our hero runs away. Further tragedies lead to a violent finale.

Based on the director's stage play--which must have seen even cornier onstage--this isn't at all the 70s blaxploitation piece it was rather desperately marketed as, but a crude inspirational drama like those of Oscar Micheaux (as a prior poster noted). If not for the infrequent, rather gratuitous, very badly shot sexploitative scene, it would be something you'd expect to see in a church basement of the era.

The low-budget film-making is really erratic, ditto the acting, both running a gamut from the nearly professional to the completely hapless. Unsurprisingly, this was the first/last film endeavor for its writer-director and much of the cast. It's got that very 70s thing of soundtracked soul songs that clumsily comment on the action. By no stretch of the imagination is this a good movie, nor is it a camp classic despite some dialogue howlers. Still, it's worth a look for people (like me) who find any one-off oddity from the era interesting.

This is really a successor to the one-man, low-budget productions of Oscar Micheaux in the 1920's and 1930's, rather than one of the blaxploitation movies of the 1960's and 1970's.

Blaxploitation movies were urban. They were action movies with karate, knife, and gun fights; they pitted black heroes (sometimes good guys but often criminals themselves) against bad white guys (usually politicians and cops). They had pounding rhythm and blues scores and pimp style, and most of them were produced by major film studios, though on relatively small budgets.

The black-audience shoestring independent productions of Micheaux and his colleagues, on the other hand, most frequently had rural or small-town settings. Their characters were rarely involved in crime, and there was minimal violence. There was also little conflict between blacks and whites; the conflict was intraracial, and the movies usually had a religious, moral, or social message.

Under either title, "Black Hooker" or "Street Sisters," this movie markets itself as a blaxploitation movie, but its main elements are all from the earlier genre. It's the drama of a conflicted family, with a grandfather who is a crazed preacher; a grandmother who is the earthy family peacemaker; their daughter, the title character, who is more like the fallen woman in the earlier films than like the flashy, assertive whores of the later ones; and the daughter's son who is light enough to pass for white (and passing is a common theme of the earlier movies).

It's also, unfortunately, just as clumsily plotted and directed as the Micheaux movies.

Black hooker accidentally gets pregnant by a white man, and drops off the finished product at her parents house. Only Grandma cares about little "what's his name". Grandpa the Preacher despises the young lad, due to the fact that his half-blackness doesn't show. Mama the prostitute couldn't care less if little "whats his name" lives or dies, as black hooker is too busy out living her sinful life to care about anyone but herself. It's just a matter of time before half-white offspring becomes seriously screwed-up half-white guy, who has issues with women. An estranged hooker for a mother is one thing, but having to depend on hateful old Grandpa is becoming a bit much. Now that Grandpa has stolen "what's his name's" best girl, maybe it's time to leave home, and go pay mama a visit, to see if she can make life any less unbearable. Apparently, "what's his name" forgot the part about mama not caring whether he lives or dies. Hopefully, she'll break the news to him gently.

Yeah, sure, why not? A little mean-spirited Blaxploitation, now and then, is good for the soul. I'm not even sure this is Blaxpoittation. It's more like some really dismal Hixploitation, which happens to feature a black cast. Whatever the hell this is, it is quite the mean-spirited, uncomfortable little obscurity, which caters only to collectors of the most obscure B-cinema available. A hostile, impersonal story, with zero light at the end of the tunnel. none of the characters even have names. What kind of director makes a movie like this? A director who didn't have a very happy childhood, that's who. I mean, this isn't exactly Cannibal Holocaust, or I Spit On Your Grave, or anything like that, but Black Hooker is just hateful. Available on Mill Creek Entertainment's Drive-in Movie Classics 50-pack. I figure, if you aren't depressed by depressing movies, and are up for anything as long as it's obscure, then who knows? You might not hate Black Hooker. 5/10

Who was Aurther Roberson? How did he come to write a play that was developed into his own film? Ahd for God sakes, why didn't SOMEBODY stop him?

A true blue oddity, "Street Sisters" or "Black Hooker" or "THe Worst Film I Have Ever Seen", whatever you want to call it, has to been seen to be truly believed. Obviously some barely professional melodrama that somebody got the bright idea of marketing as blasksployattion, this film puts you through a lot.

The other posters covered it pretty well, but one amusing thing is, in the low budget style of no live sound, Robertson shoots a lot with the person talking off screen. BUT then he shots a lot of close ups where part of the persons face is off screen, maybe so you don't see their lips more?

Oh. My. God. This is really bad. Love the totally surreal funeral scene.

Not depressed enough? Why don't you try this film that involves the life and times of some poor kid who has to be brought up by his grandparents because his mum is out there getting her kicks from Johns while getting them to bite her real heard or something because she thrives on their hate.

Add to that the grandfather who is a priest who thinks his grandson is some sort of abomination but ain't afraid to play stinky finger with his grandson's childhood sweetheart. To be honest if you can even make it to this part in the movie without removing your eyeballs with a spoon then you may actually have the same kind of OCD as me.

Easily the weakest film in the mill Creek Drive in Classics box set, this film is like standing in line to get a hot dog, pishing yourself, then weeping uncontrollably.

Street Sisters AKA Black Hooker

I got this film in a 50-pack Drive-in collection. The film isn't all that bad. The story is interesting but it is lacking better directing and the script needed a bit more cleaning up but otherwise it's fairly good story. The film surprised me - better that I was guessing it would be. The core of the story is about love and hate. Good vs evil. Right vs wrong. God vs the Devil.

The story is basically about one family their trials and tribulations with prostitution. The hooker daughter and her mother try to get along but the father hates his daughter. The mother is a horrible woman and hooker, she leaves her son with her parents -- he was raised by his grandparents and always missed the love of his mom. The boy is half white and half black -- this is one of the reasons he is cast aside by a few people - including is own mother. His grandmother is a very good Christian woman and the peacemaker of the family. His grandfather is a crazy preacher man.

The ending is lacking a bit more but otherwise a pretty good film.

4/10

The version I saw was called Black Hookers, not Street Sisters, which I guess is the origninal title.

First of all for some reason all the titles were BACKWARDS. Not sure why.

It's not what you would think, being made in the 70's with either title.

Not exploitation. It seems ot be a straight boring storytelling. And not all that great. I was bored out of my mind.

I found this movie on VHS several years ago and became obsessed with it. It is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO bad, in such a good way. I would invite friends over for a movie, tell them I'd found this really AWESOME movie, pop this in, and after awhile would be asked, what the hell I was making them watch. I must have watched it hundreds of times. Since then I have moved around a bit and have lost all of my VHS tapes, and player. Will this ever see the light of day on DVD? It is def one of the WORST movies ever made, and I love it!!!!!!!!! So if anyone else out there has a copy, or knows where I can get a copy, I would love to receive any information that you may have to offer. This is truly Blackploitation at it's best/worst. The acting directing and producing is the worst. So if you enjoy this type of dull bad acted movie, find it!!!!! Make all of your friends watch it with you, but do offer them some wine or a drink to enhance the mood. They'll need it.

I'm guessing that this movie was re-titled back in the 70's in an attempt to align it with the then popular Blaxploitation sub-genre. The original title 'Street Sisters' and 'Black Hooker', the one it went on to be known as, both suggest that the film will be a contemporary urban-based genre piece revolving around black characters from the ghetto. As it turns out, while this certainly is a black-themed movie, it is a period-set family drama set in the country. I suspect that its distributor thought it might be a hard sell and so re-titled it to appeal to the Blaxploitation audience. Whatever the case, the title is somewhat misleading, as this one turns out to be quite serious minded, looking at topics such as prostitution, family, religious hypocrisy and mixed-race identity. I'm not saying it necessarily covers these topics especially brilliantly but it was nice to see a very low budget movie have the ambition to at least try to.

The story is essentially about a family. A mixed-race boy is brought up by his grandparents when his mother, the hooker of the title, decides he is too much hassle to look after. It might be sensible to mention firstly that the son is pretty clearly not mixed-race in the slightest! So you need to just go with this anomaly from the get-go. The grandfather is a religious zealot prone to sexually predatory behaviour, while the hooker mother is completely immoral and uncaring. In between these two extremes is the grandmother who is the peace-keeper and the son's only good moral compass. Interestingly, none of the characters are named at any point, with the hooker mother being named in the credits as 'The Painted Lady'! The film-making is certainly pretty raw, with a definite roughness all round, yet this did give the film a certain grit which didn't do it too much harm. In direct contrast to the harsh story, the location was quite appealing with some attractive sunset photography of characters in overgrown fields for example; so the look of the movie often has a pleasing glowing ambiance to it which I thought was pretty nice. On the whole, while this one has a definite lo-fi rawness, it does also have some ambition, decent acting and sense of place. I reckon it's one that deserves to be given a chance.

When I worked with L.A. County, I knew Art Roberson fairly well, tho I have no idea of his current status or whereabouts. We were both social workers in the ghetto (really) in the 1970s. My impression was that being a social worker was his day job, that being a movie maker was his primary ambition...so what else is new?

The movie, some interiors of which were shot at the legendary Joe Jost's in Long Beach, premiered for friends and associates at Warner Bros. screening room in Burbank. At the end of the showing, it was greeted by dead silence, replacing excitement or applause.

I think the viewers realized that the director had blown a pretty good chance to do something worthwhile after all his work, investment and attention to this film.

Originally entitled something like "Don't Leave Go My Hand" (or maybe

"Don't Let Go My Hand"), it was supposed to sensitively portray the horrible life of a neglected (or abused, I don't recall which) black child, the son of a...you guessed it...black hooker!

But that original intent didn't play, so the title was changed to "Black Hooker," presumably to piggyback on the blaxploitation movement at the time.

As sort of a metaphor for that all-too-sensitive evening's experience, after the showing, as the cars were wending out of the Warner Bros. lot, I clearly recall the car of a black viewer rear-ending the car of a white viewer who had stopped short at a traffic light...an embarrassing wreck.

Just when I think I've seen every unnoticed example of the 'blaxploitation' genre...along comes this quirky, sincere little film from 1972. It more rightly fits, perhaps, into the sub-genre of African-American themed films set in the Great Depression, like "Book of Numbers" and "Thomasine and Bushrod". The actress who plays the main character's mother bears a rather striking resemblance to Josephine Baker. The film's stage origins often stick out and the fact that all the dialogue was post-synched doesn't help to alleviate a general sense of technical stiffness. Still, it's an interesting story about the son of a light-skinned prostitute (improbably played by an actor who's far too fair-skinned, blonde and blue-eyed) caught between the clash of white and black cultures. The video version I watched (on Edde) was actually a pretty good looking print (apart from a few bad stretches on the soundtrack), moderately letterboxed even. If you can find this and are a fan of the genre, check it out.

Blaxsploitation cinema of the 70's is littered with the same old tiresome genres: Martials Arts, Gangster movies and Drug Smuggling. So it's refreshing to come across a movie that tries to shake the boundaries and try something new. Granted Arthur Robinson's 'Sister, Sister' aka Black Hooker and Don't Leave Go My Hand, suffers somewhat dramatically from amateur directing, but overall the movie delivers its story well enough for the audience to appreciate the intentions it sets out to achieve.

The story follows the early years of a young white boy, abandoned by his mother; A high class African-American hooker from the city, to be brought up by her grandparents in the poor black regions in the countryside. The denial of her son, is illustrated through her disgust at his white skin, blonde hair and blue eyes, a child born a bastard to a drunken white man and a prostitute. The child however, alien to a world of racial bigotry, wants only the love of his estranged mother. After losing his childhood sweetheart and first love to his preacher grandfather at the age of 16, he decides to leave home for the city in search of his mother, only to finally find her and be greeted with stone cold denial, and contempt. A lifetime of rejection and hardship is too much to bare for the son... How will he cope?

A fairly thought provoking story which undeniably sets out to challenge the social and ethnic class structures that were so divided in working class America in the 70's. Which I feel the current IMDb rating does not give it credit for. There's no pretending that this movie is anything particularly special, but it does manage to string together a plausible narrative, which offers somewhat more than the usual pimp/blow/fist fighter we're so used to with blaxploitation.

The strength of this movie comes from the performance of the leading actress Sandra Alexandra who plays the working girl mother. Besides Alexandra's performance, the rest of the cast is nothing out of the ordinary, but the ideals this movie is trying to flagstone, speak louder than the actions actually portrayed on the screen.

With the title of this movie at times being "Street Sisters" and other times "Black Hooker", one might be lead to believe this is a sleazy blaxploitation movie. Actually, while the movie does have a couple of sex scenes with nudity, the majority of the movie aims to be a serious drama. Nothing wrong with that aim, but the end results are disappointing. I will say that the acting by the no-name cast is competent, and while the movie is based on a stage play, it manages to hide its stage origins fairly well. But the storytelling is a mess. It's confusing with its abrupt jumps in time, though most of the time the movie is really slow, padded out with scenes that serve little to no purpose. And we never really get into the head of the Caucasian central character. I suspect that this worked a lot better on the stage than this cinematic translation.

Street Sisters (1974)

* (out of 4)

Painted Woman (Sandra Alexandra) is a black woman who works as a prostitute. After getting pregnant by a white man, she drops her child off to be raised by Granma (Kathryn Jackson) and the overly religious Grandpa (Jeff Burton). As the boy grows older he must face many difficult issues in life.

Apparently Arthur Roberson wrote a play and eventually wrote a screenplay and turned it into this movie. Apparently no one went to see STREET SISTERS so it was re-released as BLACK HOOKERS to try and get some blaxploitation love but that didn't happen either as the film is pretty much unknown to most people. I stumbled across it on a blaxploitation channel or else I too probably would have never ran into it.

STREET SISTERS is a film that I can respect because they tried to tell a serious drama but sadly pretty much everything in the film went terribly wrong. I say that because you can tell that this was based on a play as it looks like a play. That means, as a film, it's quite ugly to look out without any style and there's really nothing pretty to look at. Another problem is with the story as its rather confusing as to what's happening or what's supposed to be happening because it just never makes too much sense.

What's worse is the fact that it's deadly boring to the point that the 86-minute running time seems to be lasting longer than it would take you to watch ROOTS. Again, I respect that the director was trying to deliver a real drama about a family being torn apart by a woman's decision to work as a prostitute but it just doesn't work and in the end it's a complete bore and a poorly made on at that.

With that said, I did enjoy some of the performances, although no one outside of Jackson and Burton had any experience or went on to do anything else. You'll notice that the mixed boy as a child and an adult is played by a straight white person so the attempt to have them as mixed just doesn't work. Then again, not too much does work in this film.