New World Action Pictures! week kicks off at Trailers from Hell, with filmmaker David DeCoteau introducing “Darktown Strutters,” directed by William Witney (a Tarantino favorite).
Veteran western and serial director Witney began his career as a bit player in 1934, cashed in his
Hollywood chips with this penultimate, extremely cartoony and uncharacteristic
effort. New World picked it up from Roger Corman’s brother Gene who produced it
with Tennessee financing but was unable to find a distributor. When it proved a
bit too bizarre for the general blaxploitation market, NW reissued it two years
later as Get Down and Boogie, to similarly meager boxoffice returns. For years
this was considered Witney’s last feature, but in recent years a German-US
western called Showdown at Eagle Gap has surfaced on video from Echo Bridge.
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