TONITE !!!! Soul Jazz Records presents Car Wash (1976) rare one-off film screening Fri 15 Sep 2017 at Regent Street Cinema, London W1
Book Tickets here now
Extremely funny and groovy all-black cast film, starring Richard Pryor, Pointer Sisters, Antonio Fargas ('aka Huggy Bear') and nuff cast!
Wicked soundtrack from Norman Whitfield-produced Rose Royce (includes Car Wash, I Want To Get Next To You, Put Your Money Where Your Mouth is), Pointer Sisters and more!
Showing at Regent Street Cinema, London, W1 next Fri Sep 15 at 7.30 pm introduced by Stuart Baker (head of Soul Jazz Records) and post-film funk and soul DJ set from Soul Jazz Records in the bar.
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40 years after it’s initial release we see that the themes that this mainstream comedy dealt with parallel heavyweight political black films such as Spike Lee’s seminal Do the Right Thing or, and even prod at the left-wing agitation and provocation of Jean Luc Godard.
Essentially the theme is the camaraderie of a group of African-American men as the enjoy life whilst each also deals in various ways with the everyday racism of American society – leading to a depressing comparison with America under Donald Trump today, 40 years later.
The film is an all-black ensemble humanist look at everyday African-American life circa 1976 with many, many memorable characters:
Richard Pryor guests as a money-grabbing evangelist preacher, complete with his disciples, the hip Pointer Sisters. Antonio Fargas plays a very funny gay cross-dressing man, “both funny and challenging through his gay militancy.”
Ivan Dixon plays an ex-convict. As an actor Dixon had earlier starred in the seminal black film Nothing But A Man (Malcolm X’s favourite film) and directed the Blaxploitation movies Trouble Man and the radical The Spook Who Sat By The Door.
Bill Duke plays Abdullah – as post-Black Power radical whose anger pulsates throughout the film. There are also a host of funny characters – the white “Mao-inspired communist’ son of the car wash-owner who wants to work alongside ‘the workers’. ‘The Fly’ who impersonates a fly!, two friends obsessed by The Temptations.
Add together a seriously catch soundtrack from Rose Royce, The Pointer Sisters & others (tracks include Car Wash, I Just Wanna Get Next To You, Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is) and this film rocks!
Car Wash was made at the zenith of the Blaxploitation-era of black films made in the USA in the 1970s. Populist in intent, not exploitative in any way, the film was significantly one of the last black-ensemble cast films made in the USA before the arrival of the blockbuster movies of Jaws, Star Wars etc essentially led to a dismantling by the mainstream Hollywood studios of this genre which whilst genre-led, nevertheless presented black life on the large screen for the first time.