What is uncanny about Willie Dynamite is that the film is able to take this despicable, self-absorbed, sadistic pimp and humanize him. How director Gilbert Moses and actor Roscoe Orman(as Dynamite)pull this off is worthy of applause. The destruction left by his devious activities are of focus in this blaxploitation effort. Cora(Diana Sands, in a solid performance), a social worker, attempts to pry a lovely young prostitute, Pashen(Joyce Walker)from the clutches of Dynamite's powerful influence. Willie Dynamite decides to take his pimping solo, splitting from his colleagues, securing wealthy clientèle for his girls. Dynamite lives it up lavishly, while his girls are treated to second hand "glamor" wardrobe they believe is high-class. Meanwhile, Dynamite's fellow pimps are seeking after him, not appreciative of his decision to separate from their network which brought forth quite an enterprise. The police are after Willie, hoping to pin the right crime on him that'll stick, forcing him off the streets. Dynamite has a reputation for getting his girls hooked on narcotics, when their worth is depleted and value diminished sending them away to fall into destitution. Cora, understanding his dangerous nature, wishes to see Willie taken down, soon recognizing that despite his corrupt ways, he's still a human being in need of guidance.The film starts out as almost a comedy where these pimps, with their pomp and attitude, driving their colorful cars and wearing their vibrant custom suits, fur coats, and flashy hats, are almost caricatures, over-the-top creations broadly performed by the African-American cast. But, as the film progresses, it gets dead serious and we see how the life style of a pimp can, in fact, lead to tragedies of severe magnitude. Preshen almost succeeds in getting away from the whoring business, but through Willi's commanding dominating personality, he's able to convince her to stay, with the consequences of her brief imprisonment leading to a devastating abuse threatening a potential modeling career. Dynamite's mother(..and their family)have always been told that he was an important music producer, explaining the gifts and other extravagances he could give her..the truth revealed and the possible incarceration of her son yields a terrible reaction. And, as competition arises, one of Willie's top girls is killed by a throat slash during an altercation over rich clients. It's a domino effect that leads to Willie's downward spiral, everything that happens contributed to his bad behavior, repercussions deriving from his mistakes and avarice. It's a hoot seeing Orman, a fixture on Sesame Street, in the role of a lecherous pimp! Shooting on the streets in many cases adds a grit and grime providing an authenticity that gives the material presented extra punch. Orman, at times, can be pretty electrifying, and his character, for most of the running time, is easy to root against for he's not very likable at all. Great chase scene as Willie attempts to break free from two detectives on his tail, while hoping to recover hidden drugs stashed away for safe keeping.

A classic 70's Blaxploitation film. Pimps as colorful as peacocks with land cruisers dressed in chrome.Roscoe Orman (Gordon from Sesame Street) plays Willie, a pimp who has the patter down pat and the clothing that rivals anything that your imagination can come up with. He runs afoul of a determined social worker and the police, both determined to bring him down. They use every trick in the book to make his life hell and bring on him the wrath of his fellow pimps.Diana Sands, who was one of the top black actresses of the 50s and 60s, shined as the social worker. This was one of her last films as she died of cancer before its release. She was 39.Like Al Capone, Willie's downfall was the IRS.

It is impossible to deny that this film has some hilarious parts. You can't help enjoying the absolutely ridiculous outfits and mannerisms of the pimps.Everything from Willie's beyond gaudy car to even the characters' names (i.e. the white pimp named Milky Way) is pretty entertaining.But it does have some serious (well okay, maybe not serious) implications as well. It is basically set up like most classic tragedies; a man in a position of great power falls due to a tragic flaw. Willie is likable enough not to deserve our hatred, but ruthless enough that we accept that he deserved his fate. Okay, so it's a bad idea to overthink this movie, but it is important to at least recognize that format.Furthermore, its social implications are pretty relevant. It portrayed Black and White characters in both positive and negative stereotypes, as well as providing more well rounded characters to serve as positive rolemodels. It started out glorifying the pimp lifestyle and slowly de-glamorized it as a life of dishonesty, drug addiction, violence, and eventual ruin. It may have really given young kids growing up in ghettoes in that era as made something to think about by slowly exposing the harsh realities of a life outside the law. Especially since it also presented positive Black role models who came from similar situations, like Cora, a prostitute-turned-social worker on a quest to help rescue other young girls from a life on the streets.

******SPOLIERS****** "Willie Dynamite" is miles above the average "Blaxploitation" films made in the 1970's by it's not glorifying the title character in any way but showing him as a ruthless as well as tragic and misguided person. A person who's self-destructive lifestyle as a big time city pimp lead to disaster not only to himself but to all those around him: his women his friends his hangers-on and worst of all his sweet and church-going mother played by Royce Wallace. Back in those days, the 70's, Willie Dynamite, Roscoe Orman, could easily have been made to be a hero for the youth of the inner city ghettos to be looked up to and emulated. Instead the movie wisely chose to show him and his lifestyle for what it was, indifferent and unfeeling. Thats how Willie was to those women who worked the streets and hotels for him selling their hot bodies for the only thing that mattered to him the bottom line: Cold Cash. The film chronicles the rise and fall and in the end redemption of big city pimp Willie Dynamite after he saw his mother collapse in the courthouse, when she found out what Willie really did for a living, and later die in the hospital without Willie being able to tells her that he's sorry for what he did and get her forgiveness. Willie let his mom on to believe that he was a record agent not a pimp.Willie's top hooker Pashen, Joyce Walker, who wanted to get out of the hooker business and become a fashion model after she was shown the light by Cora, Diana Sands, a social worker who tried to save girls like her from being exploited by pimps like Willie. Pashen instead gets sweet-talked back into turning tricks by Willie's and ends up having her pretty face slashed while she was in the womens house of detention waiting to be bailed out by him. Diana Sands steals the movie with her sensitive portrayal of a social worker who knows all too well what life on the streets can do from her sad and abysmal life as a young women and tries to get the girls working for Willie to save themselves from that life like she did. We also see Diana change her opinion about Willie when he's destroyed by his fellow pimps as well as the law and becomes a broken and humbled person instead of the brash and arrogant pimp that she fought with throughout most of the movie. It's Cora's tender and emotional scene with Willie at the end of the film made you want to reach for your handkerchief. Finally Willie himself who went from a cold-hearted and unfeeling person who looked at both his hookers and the Johns who paid for their services only as dollar signs to where he became a sensitive and understanding person by the time the movie ended but it took a walk through hell for Willie to get to that point. The movie also has fine location filming in and around NYC with a great musical soundtrack.It would be unfair for "Willie Dynamite" to be described as a "Blaxploitation" movie; It doesn't exploits it's audience it educates it.