Syreena must investigate the disappearance of her mother, Cinderella. A series of wild complications follow.
Director: William Witney
Stars: Trina Parks, Edna Richardson, Bettye Sweet, Roger E. Mosley.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072844/
Watched online, mediocre print, fs, runtime 1h 21m.
Only 2 songs listed in the Soundtracks, and AFI Catalogue agrees. So this should not qualify as a Musical. I didn't make sufficient notes to have a strong opinion. It seemed like it had more than 2.
The one familiar number that jumped out at me, performed by a group behind jail bars, was What You See Is What You Get. View clip here.
I didn't catch any reference to the song Darktown Strutters Ball. Here's a '42 Soundie of it. The song was published in '17, written by Shelton Brooks.
Nor did I see any Ball of any kind. But that word is not part of the title.
This film has a rambling plot with plenty of wardrobe changes for the star, daughter of a woman named Cinderella, sans nasty stepmother and stepsisters, also no lost shoe or lonely prince. The opening of the film even states that any similarity between this film and the fairy tale character is "bs" (spelled out). This is a Pam Greer style heroine, but comedic, and any violence is silly, not aggressive.
Cops are shown as buffoons, with the old flashing light dome on the squad car consuming the entire roof, and they wear bandoleros with enormous cartridges, too big even for shotgun shells. One recurring gag is the fat cop who can't get through doorways, including the back door of the cruiser. (He's not actually that fat, but when you build a narrow doorway for the film, it sorta works.)
The plot concerns the Colonel Sanders lookalike who got rich with a chain of barbeque shops call Hog Heaven, and went on to exploit girls with unwanted pregnancies to experiment with making clones of important black men in the community. He wanted their endorsement for political office. He happens to also kidnap Cinderella, another community leader. I'm not sure why he also locked up the singing group in his dungeon.
This is really not worth the time. It is listed among Notable blaxploitation films in Wikipedia.
New World Pictures, dir. Witney; 5
