Switchblade Sisters (1999)
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53% of critics liked it
(19 reviews) -
68% of users liked it
(3,377 ratings)
Exploitation auteur Jack Hill wrote and directed this wild, often satiric girl-gang movie, whose story is loosely (make that very, very loosely) based on Othello. The Silver Daggers are a gang of young hoods who control an inner-city high school, where they sell drugs and sex to the student body and… More Exploitation auteur Jack Hill wrote and directed this wild, often satiric girl-gang movie, whose story is loosely (make that very, very loosely) based on Othello. The Silver Daggers are a gang of young hoods who control an inner-city high school, where they sell drugs and sex to the student body and fight anyone who gets in their way. The Daggers have a ladies' auxiliary, The Dagger Debs, who rumble just as hard as the men, but one day chief Dagger Deb Lace (Robbie Lee) meets her match in Maggie (Joanne Nail), a new kid who won't back down. When a scuffle lands Maggie and the Debs in jail for the night, Maggie comes to Lace's rescue, and Maggie becomes Lace's new right-hand woman. However, fellow Deb Patch (Monica Gayle) is jealous of Maggie's friendship with Lace, and begins spinning a web of deceit to destroy Lace's trust in the new deb. In the midst of the infighting, the Silver Daggers find their turf challenged by a rival gang who pose as a community action team, and the Debs join forces with a revolutionary political group. Kitty Bruce, Lenny Bruce's daughter, plays Doughnut, one of the Debs, and Marlene Clark plays a Mao-spouting revolutionary leader. This exploitation cult item gained a new life in 1996, when Quentin Tarantino, a big fan of director Hill, sponsored a theatrical re-release through his company Rolling Thunder Pictures. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Directed By
- Jack Hill
- Written By
- F. X. Maier, Jack Hill, John Prizer
- Genres
- Drama, Action & Adventure
R,
- In Theaters
- Jan 1, 1975 Wide
- Studio
- Rolling Thunder Pictures
Critic Reviews
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Richard Harrington, Washington Post
The acting is so bad that apparently none of the performers ever got another job in the movies, and the costumes in Ben Hur seem less dated that those on display here.
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Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times
A terrific example of efficient, resourceful filmmaking, and its depiction of urban ills is, if anything, all too prophetic.
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Stephen Holden, New York Times
To watch Switchblade Sisters is to visit a never-never land of shopworn media images colliding in a tabloid high school of the mind.
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Desson Thomson, Washington Post
Sublime, exploitative camp.
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Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle
Just good enough to make it understandable why someone else might really like it. And it's just bad enough to make you wonder about such a person.
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Cast
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Bill Adler
as Fingers
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Marlene Clark
as Muff
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Monica Gayle
as Patch
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Kate Murtagh
as Mom Smackley
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Joanne Nail
as Maggie
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Don Stark
as Hook
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Asher Brauner
as Dominic
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Janice Karman
as Bunny
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Kitty Bruce
as Donut
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Robbie Lee
as Lace
- Chase Newhart
- Robert Lee
