As all fans of exploitation cinema will know, there were many, many blaxploitation movies released during the 1970s after Melvin van Peebles left an incredibly impression on black audiences with Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song in 1971. While many are rather enjoyable in a comical way, few works of blaxploitation were actually any good. Tony Award-nominated Broadway director Gilbert Moses' Willie Dynamite is incredibly under-seen, but is one of the genre's most impressive works, shunning the usual hyper-stylised, lightly comic beats in favour of something more serious and dramatic, while also touching on themes such as black identity, racism and police corruption.New York pimp Willie Dynamite (Roscoe Orman) has built himself a mini-empire, training his girls to work like a production line to maximise profits and keep his many customers happy. While his clothes are utterly outlandish (there are some of most ridiculous outfits ever seen in the genre here), Willie ain't no lovable scamp like Super Fly (1972), but a real piece of s**t; he regularly threatens his girls with violence, underpays them, and fails to offer any help when they get themselves arrested. When he's late to turn up to court for his most recent arrival Pashen (Joyce Walker), prostitute-turned-social worker Cora (Diana Sands) takes a particular interest, and becomes intent on rescuing Willie's girls and ending his reign of terror.For a genre normally so rich in exploitative traits, Willie Dynamite contains no nudity and little violence, earning its adult rating instead for language and drug use. The lack of sex and action scenes leaves plenty of room for drama and character building, and Willie's journey to discovering his place in society and ultimately redeeming himself is all the more engrossing for it. Anyone familiar with Sesame Street will be left shocked at the sight of Orman wearing some of the most garish costumes ever committed to celluloid and trying to keep his bitches in check, and it's a very convincing performance. But it is in fact Diana Sands, who sadly died shortly after filming, who steals the film as the force of nature with a gentle side. Ripe for re- discovery, there's much more to Willie Dynamite than I would have ever expected. Now, bring me some scratch.

"Willie Dynamite" (Roscoe Orman) is a pimp who has a stable of 7 prostitutes who earn him a very lucrative living. Life is good. However, one day a rival pimp by the name of "Bell" (Roger Robinson) decides to call a meeting to discuss organizing into a collective group and allocating territories for each of them to conduct their business in. Willie is the only one who doesn't care for the idea and incurs the wrath of Bell in the process. Not only that, but a social worker named "Cora Williams" (Diana Sands) becomes concerned about one of his prostitutes by the name of "Pashon" (Joyce Walker) and decides to put Willie out of business. The fact that she is sleeping with the Assistant District Attorney makes her much more dangerous than Willie realizes. Suddenly things mysteriously start going wrong for him. Big time. Anyway, rather than divulge the entire story, I will just say that this was an interesting film depicting the life of a pimp from his point of view. The problem with that scenario is that in order to be realistic it had to show the ugliness within him. As a result, it became difficult to sympathize with him or develop any concern with his plight. On the other hand, because of the arrogant and illegal tactics the police used it was also difficult to side with them either. Likewise, the ending wasn't well-developed and seemed to leave the story hanging. In any case, in spite of all of the challenges and flaws this was still an entertaining film for the most part. Not great by any means, but for a blaxploitation film dealing with this particular subject matter I suppose it deserves a rating of slightly better than average.

Willie Dynamite is most certainly one of the most flamboyant pimps to ever grace the screen and his "stable" of beautiful women are frequently scantily clad, but don't let the smooth taste fool you, Willie Dynamite is not your average pimp film."Willie Dynamite" was at times thought-provoking, frequently intense and entertaining throughout. Watching Willie Dynamite fall from pimp grace makes for some interesting drama.Roscoe Orman is great as the fallen pimp and Diana Sands is brilliant as always but there is much to be said about the performance of the young Joyce Walker, Willie's newest and most inexperienced 'treat'. This film's motto seems to be 'even an old dog can learn new tricks' as each of the main characters undergo some form of transformation before the credits start rolling.8/10 stars

Long before the WWF's "Godfather", Willie Dynamite proved without a doubt that "Pimpin ain't easy!" Available on video at most BlockBuster Videos'. Not the quintessential "pimp flick" that "The Mack" w/Max Julian or the humorous romps of the "Dolemite" films; but not as dreary as say "The Candy Tangerine Man".