User reviews

Man, I haven't seen this much nudity and so many stereotypes in a long time! Black, White, Rich, Gay, Straight--It has all of them.

Man,could the Gay hairdressers be more flaming? damn. And I have known a few gay hairdressers.

This has all the 70's clichés ever invented and portrayed in this sort of film, but Shaft, Superfly, Dolemite it ain't! LOL.

OK, it is NOT a great movie, It is a low budget cheese fest, yes.

But I really love seeing women in old movies who haven't been Botoxed, Implanted or Siliconed!You know what I'm sayin'? All natural hair, and...well you know.

The clothes are so funky, and it's hard to believe people dressed like that, but styles have a way of coming back around.

I grew up in those days. I was 12 when this movie came out, so I obviously didn't see it, plus I was nerdy, white and un-hip. (Still white and nerdy) LOL! So don't be so quick to over analyze and critique this film, it is what it is, and so are the other blaxploitation films of the 70's.

I love this kind of stuff, even if it is stupid, lame and dumb.

Damn, those women are fine.

Like 6 nude scenes in 30 minutes! Yee haw! I'm a typical guy, huh? Peace!

Black Shampoo (1976) is a gem that I recently watched on Tubi. The storyline follows a male black female hairstylist who is also a gigolo and white chick magnet. His new female front desk employee may cause him to fall in love and change his ways. Unfortunately for him her ex-boyfriend is a member of the mob and has other plans for her.

This movie is directed by Greydon Clark (Angel's Brigade) and stars John Daniels (Getting Over), Tanya Boyd (The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood), William Bonner (Big Foot), Anne Gaybis (Friday the 13th Part III) and Jacqulin Cole (Angels' Brigade).

This felt like a movie that couldn't decide if it wanted to be soft porn or a blaxploitation film, so it's a little bit of both. The soundtrack is excellent and the premise had potential. Unfortunately, John Daniels isn't as charismatic as some main characters from this era and his lines are nothing special, but the sex scenes are excellent and ladies are gorgeous. The ending of this film with the chainsaw and ax is a 10/10 and the highlight of the film.

Overall, this movie is very average with a tremendous ending. I would score this a 6/10 and recommend seeing it once.

Right before director Greydon Clark did "Satan's Cheerleaders", he made this 1976 violent blaxploitation cheese ball about a salon owner/gigolo, Mr. Johnathan (John Daniels, who looks like a smaller, african american Lou Ferrigno) getting revenge on the white mobsters who kidnap his secretary/girlfriend, beat up his gay hairdressers and trash his salon. This has plenty of cheezy acting, especially from the stereotypical gay hairdressers. The film is definitely not boring, except for some romantic 70s montages in the middle. There's plenty of sex, nudity, and violence resulting in a conclusion that involves chainsaw mutilations and a pool cue impaling! It shouldn't dramatically disappoint fans of the genre, but don't expect laughs like the Dolemite films. After you see it once, you probably won't come back to it. Its good for a cheap rental on bad 70s night. Black Shampoo goes mostly for a serious tone, although it has problems staying there. How serious can you take an angry hairdresser?

They just don't make 'em like this no more. Grungy as only a '70s B-Movie can be, and filled with hilariously overblown 'tude. The acting is minimal, the script is charmless and vulgar, and the lousy video version I saw made it look like a cheapo porn flick.

If you want to invite your friends over for a MST3K-type party, this would be a good one to rent. The opportunities to throw wisecracks at the screen are hard to resist!

"Mr. Jonathan" (John Daniels) is a black hairstylist who owns a salon on the Sunset Strip which is quite popular to his rich, female clientele. Not only does this salon have two dedicated hairdressers in "Artie" (Skip E. Lowe) and "Richard" (Gary Allen) but it also features the talents of the aforementioned Mr. Jonathan who the ladies simply cannot resist. Be that as it may, one day while paying a house call to one of his customers, three men enter his salon and, after physically assaulting Artie, order the newly-hired receptionist named "Brenda St. John" (Tanya Boyd) to contact a mob boss by the name of "Mr. Wilson" (Joseph Carlo)--or else. Quite distraught about being located by Mr. Wilson--and upset that Artie has been hurt--she reluctantly agrees to call him that night. However, before she does that, she feels obliged to apologize to Mr. Jonathan first. One thing eventually leads to another and the two of them become lovers. What Mr. Jonathan doesn't realize, however, is that Mr. Wilson is not a person to trifle with and he is determined to have Brenda as his mistress again. Now, rather than reveal any more I will just say that this turned out to be an entertaining movie to a certain degree in spite of the rather low-budget production values. To that effect, both the script and the acting was equally weak with Skip E. Lowe probably turning in the most uneven performance overall. The one saving grace, however, was the performance of Tanya Boyd who dominated every scene she was in. Granted, she was either partially-clad or completely nude in some of them, but even so she was quite attractive and her appearances definitely benefited the film to a large degree. That being said, while this clearly wasn't a great movie by any means, I guess it had its moments and I have rated it accordingly. Average.

I got a fair amount of entertainment out of this diverting if forgettable blaxploitation entry, but then I approached the whole thing looking at it as tongue in cheek. If one were to take it seriously, they might well find it in the "so bad it's good" category. A stiff, not too charming John Daniels is cast as Mr. Jonathan (whether that's his first or last name doesn't matter), owner / operator of a hair salon and also irresistible stud muffin to a variety of (mostly white) women. Trouble brews when Brenda (Tanya Boyd), his secretary, is threatened by her former employer, a mob boss named Mr. Wilson (Joseph Carlo). Wilson and his thugs mean business, and among their methods used are the trashing of the salon and the sodomizing of one of the employees. This dumb but fun movie comes complete with the expected funky music score with the ever present "wacka wacka" guitar, two flagrant gay stereotypes, and what will be the most appreciated by exploitation fans, an ample serving of female nudity. This certainly is a trashy outing, as the over sexed daughters of one customer unrelentingly come on to Mr. Jonathan, and it can be a very funny one as well. Just witness the awkwardly staged and ridiculous salon trashing episode. One has to see it to believe it. Hell, there's even a Western themed costume party in which one party goer is absurdly dressed in ballet gear. Things really pick up towards the end, where Mr. Jonathan is pursued by the sadistic mob flunkies armed with a miniature chainsaw. Now, we don't get to see too much detail when he carves them up, but this is an amusing bit of business nevertheless. In fact, the climax in general is pretty violent. With the level of exploitation on display, this should entertain some viewers, and it manages to generate some hearty laughs as well; the music score is at times utterly ridiculous. All in all, this probably won't become a classic or get too many retrospectives but it's a mild hoot for people with certain tastes. Seven out of 10.

"Black Shampoo" is basically half-softcore porn flick and half-blaxploitation/action/crime/whatever. The filmmakers' hearts were in the softcore parts, but not the rest.

As you no doubt know, the film's title is a reference to the fact that it is a rip off of the Warren Beatty/Hal Ashby flick "Shampoo", a sex comedy in which Beatty played a Casanova type who worked as a hairdresser slash gigolo to a bunch of ladies.

In this one, John Daniels does the same thing, but there's some rubbish about the Mafia muscling in on his turf. What the hell do the mafia want with a hair salon, anyway?

At first, these mafia encounters are just stupid and boring, but then the movie comes to a ridiculously violent conclusion. There is a chainsaw death scene which is curiously bloodless, leading me to think that the movie wasn't going to be too violent... but then a guy gets impaled with a pool cue, as though it were a spear. Who sharpened the end on that thing?

There's not much to recommend "Black Shampoo" for. The nudity is okay, I guess, but there are movies that let you watch those scenes without having to sit through the whole thing.

This was kind of a waste of time. But what do you expect from the guy who made "Joysticks"? Has Greydon Clarke ever made a good movie? IMDB seems not to think so, and I'm not surprised.

Blaxploitation is a seriously underrated genre. Bottom line, it you enjoy blaxploitation you'll love 'Black Shampoo' he's one bad mother... shut your mouth.

Actually the hero Mr. Jonathan isn't a vigilante. He's just the only straight hair stylist at a salon catering to desperate white housewives. Inevitably Mr. Jonathan ends up giving his clients more than just shampoo, that is if their daughters don't get to him first.

Mr. Jonathan gets into a tussle with a give turkey heroine smugger whom wants Mr. Jonathan's love interest back as his black sex slave. When Mr. Jonathan tries to defend her, their salon is vandalized by thugs.

The whole thing ends in a bloody showdown involving chainsaws, axes, and pool sticks. Surprisingly violent.

So the plot's light but 'Black Shampoo' delivers on the classic blaxploitation is promises.

The recent film 'Black Dynamite' failed as a parody of blaxploitation because it failed to realized that blaxploitation is funny enough on its own.

This is one of the worst blaxploitation flicks I have seen. More incompetent than Disco Godfather. Tries to be an action/skin flick; fails at both. Starts with lots of skin, although one of the women is just not attractive in any sense. Goes through the motions with an "evil white mobsters" plot that goes nowhere. Half the movie is dialogue free montoge to music that, mercifully, is easy enough to fast forward. The ending sequence with the chainsaw killings and poker-cue as spear ripped straight from "Sweet Sweet Back" are violent enough I guess. Only really amusing feature is the ridiculous dialogue given to the hairdressers; but even this is soured by an unnecessary curling iron as anal probe sequence. Avoid this picture at all costs; I wish I did.

Black Shampoo (1976)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Mr. Jonathan (John Daniels) has all the white ladies lined up at his barber shop. Not only is he great with their hair styles but he's also got a massive you-know-what and these rich white ladies want it. His secretary Brenda (Tanya Boyd) ends up capturing his heart but shes in deep with an evil mob boss (Joseph Carlo) and soon he's out for revenge.

BLACK SHAMPOO is an obvious take-off on the Warren Beatty film and I must say that this is rather entertaining from start to finish. Director Greydon Clark certainly keeps the film moving at a very nice pace and the screenplay has some terrific, offensive and at times dirty sleaze going on that helps make the film quite memorable.

I have to say that the highlight is the first twenty-minutes of the film when we see a number of white ladies lining up to get a piece of this black man. All of these scenes are done with the tongue planted firmly in the cheek but the scenes are quite funny and also very sleazy as there's no limit of totally nude women. Just check out the sequence where he makes a house-call only to get attacked by two young ladies and then their mom comes out to teach them how it's done!

The second half of the film loses some of the more dirty moments but we're still treated to some entertaining action. Of course, being a blaxploitation film there are a lot of stereotypes. This includes a couple gay barbers who are rather embarrassing in how over-the-top and zany their "gay act" is. WIth that said, the three leads are good enough for this type of film and they at least help keep you into what you're watching.

BLACK SHAMPOO certainly isn't a masterpiece but then again it really wasn't trying to win awards. The film was made on a low-budget and the director manages to make something memorable out of it. It's trashy but fun.

Hmmmmm.......whilst often cited as a blaxploitation version of the 1975 Warren Beatty hit, Shampoo, the only real similarity between the two films is that the main protagonists are hairdressers...and of course the titles are ever so slightly similar of course....um....anyway, in this offering, our hero, Mr Johnathan is a man as much in demand for his man tool as for his curling tongs. And in a nutshell there is the intrinsic plot of the film. Well, OK there is a bit more to it then, involving one of our heroes conquests being the 'property' of a mob boss and the said slimebag's subsequently ever more violent methods of trying to get her back, however, it has to be said that the film itself is sadly, for the most part so mundane that it is hard to pay much attention to the unfolding 'events'. Thankfully, the final twenty or so minutes do kick into overdrive with a particularly gory climax but such a bizarrely violent finale ultimately seems strangely, completely juxtaposed with all that precedes it.

Certainly I've seen far worse flicks in my time but in all honesty I can't recommend this for either Blaxploitation nor bad movie fans; Note: Tedium doth not a good film make.

Black Shampoo is totally wacky: a hair salon owner and stylist(who bangs a lot of his adoring female customers) ends up in a violent battle with gangsters over the new receptionist he's fallen in love with...NUTS. Obviously they took the stylist/gigolo idea from Warren Beatty's movie Shampoo but after that it's good ol' Blaxploitation at it's best with some special touches. Bad acting and dialogue rule here, but in an amusing way. Overall this is just a mindless movie to laugh at with friends-not to be taken seriously AT ALL.

Right, well I have to admit that I was expecting a bit more story to the 1976 movie "Black Shampoo", as I sat down and watched it here in 2023 for the very first time ever. In fact, I had actually never heard about the movie prior to watching it, so I wasn't sure what I was in for here, aside from it being a Blaxploitation movie.

With me believing in giving any movie I haven't already seen a fair chance, of course I opted to watch what writers Alvin L. Fast and Greydon Clark had to offer with this 1976 movie.

And I have to say that "Black Shampoo" wasn't a movie that fell into my liking. There was simply too much time spent on showing nudity and pseudo-lovemaking scenes. Yeah, that is not really my idea of entertainment, so I have to say that director Greydon Clark didn't exactly deliver a movie that entertained me. I was expecting a tad more storytelling here.

I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in this movie. And the acting performances in the movie were fair enough. Sure, you're not in for any bedazzling performances when you sit down to watch a movie such as "Black Shampoo".

The music in the movie was adequate, I mean for a movie such as this. It was definitely some groovy music that complimented the movie.

My rating of "Black Shampoo" lands on a generous three out of ten stars.

If you do this is worth a watch. It checks all the boxes but funny lines. This film goes for a serious tone, which makes it all the more ridiculous. It's a film best enjoyed after a smoke or perhaps a rail or two.

This is the best movie ever made! This movie is so great, I chose this as my name here at IMDb.

There is not a dull moment in this movie. This is a classic tale of good vs. evil. Lot's of character building, nudity, natural beauty, gotta love the car scenes, and the chainsaw killings in the end.

This movie could have only taken place in the 1970s. The plot, the clothes, the cars and the acting is over the top. That is why I love this movie so much. Movies today suck really bad and really too much on CGI with the same actors that portray the same role in every film they do.

The only thing this move is missing is a high-speed car chase scene and perhaps a scene from the airport with a Boeing 707 flight on Pam Am or Branniff. That would make the movie flawless. :)

Go out and ad this DVD to your collection. This is a great movie to watch with your buddies or even on dates. Yes I've even shown this movie on first dates and ended up as lucky as Mr. Jonathan himself. ;)

Tanya Boyd didn't need to exploit herself like this. She could have caught anyone's eye, without removing her clothes. She looks like she's too nice for this type of movie. The movie is needlessy violent and lurid. Tanya is the only good thing about the movie, and she's too good for it.

Well I'm not saying it's one of my favorite movies but it's entertaining in a "that could never happen" kind of way. I think really bad acting can be funny, as is the case in this movie..also bad editing and cheesy "soft core"...material is humorous to me. I got a good laugh out of it! For instance, there's a scene in the beginning where Mr. Jonathat does a 'house call' and he gets 'attacked' by two white chicks, and the camera pans to some floating object in the pool! There was no reason for it, and I can't even tell what the object is to be honest! That type of really bad film production is entertaining somehow.