Hot Summer in the City Review!
To a soundtrack of The Doors, and of course The Lovin’ Spoonful, we open, on the film that Quentin Tarantino states is his favourite porno, with a young blonde nubile played by Lisa Baker being dropped off at home by her fiancé. She heads upstairs and finds her mother being deeply and lovingly ravaged by two men. “Hurry up, I wanna fuck her to,” says the man with his penis in her mouth. No detail is spared and young Debbie runs off into the streets crying, minus expressions where she’s bothered by a car full of stereotypical black men. They chase her, a neighbour decides not to help her, and as the Shangri-La’s boom out they kidnap her and hold her down across the back seats.
The black actors involved (who incidentally do not use their real names in the credits) must have been paid pretty well to act as ignorant and as vile as possible, ala “Birth of a Nation.” She’s raped in the car showing a lot of ass and bush whilst a mentally challenged member of the gang sniffs her scents off his friend’s fingers, cross eyed. We’re treated to under legs camera shots, and one cumming penis later, they drive on as various other songs play.
Debbie doesn’t act very afraid whilst held captive at some house; just rather sulky. The gang are of course black activists and very bad actors. Whilst she’s made to cook, wash up and clean, the script is littered with “honky”, “bitch”, “the Man” and “Civil rights.” I mean, who wrote this shit? “Please don’t,” Debbie says as her breasts are poked around. The evil negro scoundrels all play poker to win rights to her body, or as quoted “a piece of that white ass.” We reckon this sexploitation epic was made to 1: try and be a rape fantasy porn (obviously) and 2: to make white rednecks of that era run out and kill the first black man they see. The grinning winner, Shorty, waits for their leader, Duke to go to bed before whipping her with his belt for a few minutes.
“Fuck me, fuck me, anything! I can’t stand this!” she cries out quite uninvolved in the scene. Debbie Does Activist Phallus again as Shorty graphically rips into her. Debbie has to suck his friend, Shorty pauses, “Nigger, you didn’t win!” We then wondered how lower the script could sink into cliché. Then came a lovely close up of Stitch, our cross eyed youngster, masturbating, then three slow motion cum shots.
The next morning, Duke seems more sympathetic to her. Meanwhile, some Italian dude “The Man” and a black woman with really huge hair arrives to plan against “the honkys”: a race war. The plan involves snipers, fights, etcetera. Not sure if the budget can handle it if this thing kicks off. Things set rather surreal as Duke’s big haired girlfriend, Jody, is forced to have sex with Stitch for grabbing Debbie angrily as flashbacks of all previous sexual encounters assault our vision, and there’s more deep penetration and slow motion cum shots. Jody doesn’t quit, “You weak willed son of a bitch, you have that honky bitch but she gonna pay!” she hurls at Duke. Her reward is rape by the forever grinning Shorty whilst the camera lingers around her vagina.
As romantic music plays, Duke takes Debbie to bed. He slowly strips her and we’re led to believe by his tender kisses, he’s now got feelings for her since raping her in the car. Jody is shown intercut sucking Shorty. The next morning Debbie escapes only to be caught by the men all nude. She’s tied to a bed and because Duke heads out, she’s at the mercy of Jody and the slow Stitch. At one point Stitch talks without moving his lips, then sodomizes Debbie, wearing just his socks. As Jody is about to slice Debbie up, Duke turns up with a shotgun and a brief bloodbath happens.
“Hot Summer in the City” runs at around an hour long. The end is very swift, and no the race war isn’t shown. It doesn’t matter since this film wasn’t trying to be an early version of Mario van Peeble’s excellent “Panther,” its a porn. In this era where hardcore material of all kind is simply a few Google clicks away, it’s difficult to believe there was a time that a cheap underground movie like this existed for the rape-crowd. Miles away from the polished studio skin flicks of the seventies, “Hot Summer in the City” is one of many for a select crowd. The porn factor isn’t shocking anymore. Lisa Baker doesn’t help matters since the innocent captive is so bored looking for most of the film, the rough bumming she receives from Stitch wakes her up a bit though. Lisa acts like the production crew drugged her first but we weren’t fooled, she’s just pathetic!
What is hard to stomach is the bitter racist subject matter on display, all of the rape, violence and bad acting is second place to it. Ignore the production values and see it for what it is. A trashy lil creation for seventies business men with rape fetishes and the long mack brigade. Due to this, “Hot Summer in the City” is quite hard to obtain. We tracked ours down to a grubby DVD-R with bad quality issues.
It made us laugh that the director on the credits is named ‘The Hare’ but is actually Gail Palmer, famed for low budget pornos circa 70’s and early 80’s.
By the way, here’s a link I found on some adult website. Have fun and clean up afterwards.
Directed by: Gail Palmer (The Hare) | Written by: Gail Palmer (The Hare) | Produced by: Harry Mohoney, Imperial & Hare Films | Editing by: Stoned Cutting Rooms | Music by: Various Artists | Special Effects by: Valerie Kesh | Cast: Lisa Baker, Duke Johnson, Coke Cain, Bruce Darcy, Shorty Roberts, Stitch Umbas, Black Orchid, Tony Rizzi | Year: 1976 | Country: USA | Language: English | Color: Color | Runtime: 59min
Distributor: Imperial Films
