The Switchblade Sisters

Director: Jack Hill Jack Hill

Overview

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.

Product Details

Release Date:	04/27/2021
UPC:	0760137519287
Original Release:	1975
Source:	Arrow Video

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Bill Adler	Fingers
Asher Brauner	Dominic
Kitty Bruce	Donut
Marlene Clark	Muff
Monica Gayle	Patch
Janice Karman	Bunny
Robbie Lee	Lace
Kate Murtagh	Mom Smackley
Joanne Nail	Maggie
Don Stark	Hook

Technical Credits

Jack Hill

F.X. Maier

John Prizer

Jack Hill	Director,Screenwriter
Baxter	Score Composer
Jeff Begun	Executive Producer
Chuck Day	Songwriter
Geno Havens	Casting
Don Heitzer	Asst. Director
Don Jones	Sound/Sound Designer
Stephen M. Katz	Cinematographer
F.X. Maier	Screenwriter
Medusa	Score Composer
Frank Moreno	Executive Producer
Beala Neel	Production Designer
Richard Person	Songwriter
John Prizer	Producer,Screenwriter
Robinson Royce	Production Designer
Jodie Lynne Tillen	Costumes/Costume Designer
Mort Tubor	Editor

Editorial Reviews

Switchblade Sisters is considered to be one of Jack Hill's crowning achievements by his fans and it is easy to see why; rarely has a B-movie been so funny, smart, or slyly subversive. The key to these unexpected attributes lies in the film's style, which uses a campy pop art approach that makes the viewer vulnerable to the ambitious themes that underpin the material. Jack Hill's clever script (co-written with F.X. Maier) delivers the exploitative goods while also working in subtle elements of leftist and feminist commentary into their story's stylized landscape. Note that all the male characters are portrayed as either weak or short-sighted and the all bastions of civilized society (schools, the police, the welfare system) are painted as hopelessly corrupt. Hill also turns in some fine work from the director's chair, infusing the film with a comic book-inspired visual style and deftly weaving unexpected dramatic moments into the film's otherwise campy tone to shake the audience up. Switchblade Sisters further benefits from performances that match the film's highly stylized tone. Joanne Nail and Robbie Lee deliver colorful performances in the leads, but it's Monica Gayle who steals the show with her wild-eyed, larger-than-life turn as Patch. The end result isn't Shakespeare and is definitely too over-the-top for anyone not experienced with drive-in movies, but its delirious style and politically charged undertones make it an ideal choice for anyone interested in the high points of drive-in cinema's last golden age.

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