Shanty Tramp (1967)

Here's another sleazy one from the director who gave us the Olga movies (Olga's Girls, Olga's House Of Shame). The film follows Emily, a local Shanty Tramp with a bad overbite. Right from the opening credits we the audience knows its going to be a good one. We have a long freeze frame of our tramps back side in a tight 60's dress and When The Saints Come Marching In is obnoxiously blaring.

The Saints song will be played repeatedly throughout the film and is bound to be one of the lasting memories from the film. The song sort of suits the picture because Shanty Tramp has a anti religious message that clearly runs throughout the film. We have a traveling priest who brings his mobile church from town to town, giving midnight masses and looking for money and women. I found this interesting considering many of these exploiteers traveled with these movies in the same manor. David Friedman (The Defilers) always related it to a traveling circus and to me Shanty Tramp points the finger at the exploitation of god. Aside from the Saints song. Shanty Tramp has a decent theme song that pops up from time to time. We first hear the Shanty Tramp theme in a scene where a biker gang called the Rats pull into a local bar for some kicks "I'm so dry, I could drink Rootbeer". Of course the gang really shake the place up with bad dancing and a bit of violence. Emily does some ultra-goofy dancing with the leader of the Rats, all the while making really bad faces.

Emily takes off with our bad-boy-biker for a bit of loving but instead she gets a bit of the rough stuff in an attempted rape scene. Emily is saved by the only black man in town and she repays him by showing him a bit of tit. Emily played by Lee Holand has never done anything before or since and it probably has something to do with the embarrassing faces she makes throughout this film but she does serve a purpose since she is rather large in the chest area and being the pre-silicone 60's she is the perfect candidate for a Roughie/Sexploitation film.

Emily gives her hero a roll in the barn and when her father catches his daughter with the black man, Emily cries rape. "You are the black devil". Our black devil takes off running and the angry biker gang get their revenge by killing the black devil's mother. Emily gets a good whipping from her drunken ole father and she eventually stabs him to death with a kitchen knife. Emily runs off with the priest to do the work of god (or collect money).

Shanty Tramp is yet another example of a a exploitation flick where there really isn't any good guys. I suppose the African American or "The black devil" was the only character with any good values but he is a dead man anyway and really wasn't to bright to begin with. Everyone else in the movie is a piece of garbage and I suppose that is part of the beauty to these films. Check it out for some silly dancing (complete with funny faces), some bare breasts (complete with funny faces), violent whippings (complete with violent stabbings and funny faces), some racism, some blasphemy (complete with money hungry, pervy priests), exploding moonshine smugglers, and some really funny dialogue.