Shanty Tramp (1967) Hilarious Hillbilly Hixploitation Noir

Right out of the sleazy pulp paperbacks found near the newspaper/magazine racks of the local five & dimes comes Shanty Tramp, a little exploitation noir that deals with a promiscuous town tramp, an evangelist, a biker gang, moonshiners, and with a little dash of miscenagation thrown in for good measure.

"FILM NOIR HAD AN INEVITABLE TRAJECTORY…
THE ECCENTRIC & OFTEN GUTSY STYLE OF FILM NOIR HAD NO WHERE ELSE TO GO… BUT TO REACH FOR EVEN MORE OFF-BEAT, DEVIANT– ENDLESSLY RISKY & TABOO ORIENTED SET OF NARRATIVES FOUND IN THE SUBVERSIVE AND EXPLOITATIVE CULT FILMS OF THE MID TO LATE 50s through the 60s and into the early 70s!" (The Last Drive In)

I remember going to the local Woolworths, in the early '60s to check out their latest models, I was an avid modeler as a kid, WWI biplanes, battleships, etc., etc. I used to also get a kick out

of Ed "Big Daddy" Roth's plastic models of his "monsters," Rat Fink, Brother Rat Fink, Drag Nut, Mother's Worry, Mr. Gasser. I'd also drift over to the paperback book racks and get an eye full of the beautifully suggestive artwork of the various titles that appealed to my budding libido. Where were all these extremely alluring and scarily seductive women? A few older and wiser years later you'd hear tell of the neighborhood's "lover's lane" or, for those without vehicles, find traces of various nighttime assignations in secluded bush shrouded grassy areas of traffic islands, or on a shredded mattress in an abandoned house. You'd fantasize over the "when and who with" detritus of a single nylon stocking near a depression in the grass, or a lost pair of panties dangling from a twig. All was not squeakily prim and proper as it appeared in the Eisenhower Years, there was a sexual "Noir" side to life and it was pretty close to home.

Shanty Tramp was directed by Joseph G. Prieto who has five directing credits. His last feature was Miss Leslie's Dolls (1973), a film that has gotten a bit of renown as an underground demented rarity of interest. That film featuers Salvador Ugarte.

(from film4q at IMDb)
"Ugarte, it seems, was a mainstay of expatriate Cuban theatre in Florida, where the film was shot (in a 'studio' in the middle of a cattle farm, according to one of the cast). And his performance is a masterclass in off-beam absorption - all helped by the fact that he's dubbed with a female voice which almost but doesn't quite match his lip movements."

The writing credits for Shanty Tramp go to K. Gordon Murray for story and Reuben Guberman and Joseph G. Prieto for the screenplay. Cinematography was by Ralph Remy Jr., music was by Frank Linales.

Emily (Elanore Vaill)

Otto Schlessinger as Emily's Father Stryker

Lewis Galen as Daniel

The film stars Eleanor Vaill as Emily Stryker (as Lee Holland), Otto Schlessinger as Emily's Father Stryker, Lewis Galen as Daniel, Bill Rogers as Preacher Fallows, Lawrence Tobin as Biker Savage, and Lee Ann (as possibly Daniel's mother).

Bill Rogers as Preacher Fallows

Lawrence Tobin as Biker Savage

The story

Emily the "town pump," is hot to trot. She's on the make in a slinky low cut dress that barely contains her tits. She's strutting her stuff under the bare incandescent light bulbs of the wooden sidewalk of a Hicksville main drag. After fighting off the come on's from losers who don't quite measure up to even her low admittance standards, she sashays over to a traveling evangelist's revival tent, looking for a warm body that needs a revival.

Emily's entrance at the back of the tent catches the eye of Preacher Fallows (Rogers) along with a black man Daniel (Galen) and his mother (Ann). Fallows and Daniel like what they see. At the end of the revival Emily approaches Fallows and tells him she needs some special "counseling." Fallows tells her to come back after the last revival of the evening for a private consultation.

Emily heads off to the town juke joint Tom's where all the town sinners hang out. On the way there she runs into her pappy. He's stewed to the gills drunk. Daniel takes his mother back to their shack, but Daniel is restless and horny. He leaves his mother and goes looking for Emily.

Emily on the prowl in Toms

At Tom's, Emily picks up a guy and starts to dance. While they are dancing a biker gang roars into "Hicksville" looking for action.

The leader, Savage pulls up at Tom's the only game in town, looking for a drink and women. Inside Savage zeros in on Emily. After a brief confrontation he pushes aside Emily's dance partner and takes his place at the head of the stud line. Savage and Emily dance. Then she sits on his lap, Emily "knows" Savage is ready.

Emily breaks away from hot to trot Savage and asks Tom the owner for the key to the storeroom. Its got a convenient mattress laying ready on the floor. She's ready to make five dollars, her going rate.

Tom picks up the key from below the bar and hands it to her. It's apparently a business arrangement and a regular request, he gets a buck and probably piece for himself every in a while as part of the deal.

Emily and Savage head for the storeroom. Daniel was watching them across the road. He follows.

Its bare mattress shagging time again

Emily takes off her pearl earrings and necklace drops the into her purse and asks for her five dollars. Savage ignores her request and starts to get it on.

Savage gets rough, throws Emily down on the mattress jumps her bones and rips off Emily's dress. She screams.

Daniel, lurking outside, runs in and he confronts Savage. They fight. Daniel wins. Daniel gives Emily the shirt off his back so that she can be decent going home to her shack. Emily tells him to come over and she'll be waiting in the barn for him.

Daniel gives Emily the shirt off his back so that she can be decent going home to her shack. Emily tells him to come over once she is there and she'll be waiting in the barn for him.

Come to the barn, I'll be waitin'

When Savage comes to, he gathers his bikers and goes looking for Daniel. They get to his mothers

shanty. They question her a little too violently about Daniel and accidentally break her neck. Then all the bikers skedaddle getting the hell out of Dodge.

Meanwhile, Emily is waiting in the barn for her hero Daniel to arrive. When Daniel gets to her barn she does a striptease for an appreciative Daniel.

Here is your shirt, come and get it, wink, wink, come and get it Danny

Back at the revival Emily's drunkard of a father gets called to Jesus.

When he arrives home he finds Emily and Daniel nekkid together on a blanket in the barn.

Wut in tarnation!

Postcoital bliss, ZZZZZzzzz

Traumatized by the miscegenation he sees before his very eyes he goes running off back to town. Emily tells Daniel that he better git. Rousing the racists and the town clown sheriff deputies, a lynch mob with dogs heads towards Emily's shanty. Emily now scared tells the mob that Daniel raped her.

Emily now scared tells the mob that Daniel raped her.

Daniel cutting through the back woods sneaks up on a moonshiner making a deal with some bootleggers. The bootleggers have already loaded the shine and are finishing the deal. Daniel jumps into the bootleggers car and takes off with their goods. They follow in a second car. Daniel looses control, cracks up and burns to death.

Once the mob leaves Emily's shack her old man takes off his belt and begins to whack the tar out of her. Emily squirms and cries on the floor of the plywood shanty.

When he gets done with that, it looks like her next lesson is going to be an incest session with Daddy but Emily grabs a kitchen knife out of the sink and sticks in in her old man, over and over again, just to make sure he get's the point.

Thinking quick Emily gets dressed and heads back to the revival getting there just in time to get a private horizontal come to Jesus session with sleazy Preacher Fellows in his trailer as his driver pulls out of town.