Switchblade Sisters (1975) Dir. Jack Hill

Jack Hill is something of an icon in the exploitation film world - and it’s with his female gang film Switchblade Sisters that he reached the zenith of his abilities as a director.

Switchblade Sisters is a feminist-driven gang movie that is more direct, effective, and progressive in its aims than Hill’s two blaxploitation films of the era, Coffy and Foxy Brown, both led by Pam Grier. It follows the Dagger Debs, a gang of teenage girls led by Lace (Robbie Lee) who form the female equivalent of the domineering all-male gang the Silver Daggers, headed by Lace’s boyfriend Dominic (Asher Brauner). The Daggers are behind a prostitution and drug racket at the local high school, and are feared by many residents in the surrounding area, even the school principal.

The latest initiate to the Debs, Maggie (Joanne Nail), defends Lace in an incident after the two are temporarily placed in juvenile detention. After Maggie gets out and helps Lace relay a message to the Daggers, Dominic shows up at her mother’s apartment without warning and proceeds to force himself on her. While just a teenager, his influence and power in the area is enough that the building’s landlord doesn’t even want to stop him, and Maggie even gives him consent - it’s a dark rendering of a male fantasy, but shows early on that Switchblade Sisters is more than your average piece of sinema.

The Silver Daggers' enemy, the Crabs, move in on their turf, and war is declared. But after a shootout that sees the Daggers go into hiding, the Debs rechristen themselves the Jezebels and make it their duty to finish the job their fellas weren't able to. This film is right in Hill's territory as a director, and he's able to maneuver the script's massive tonal shifts between comedy and hard-edged violence with ease. Yet, what's surprising about Switchblade Sisters is underneath the exploitative exterior, it contains an ingenious revolutionary bend, that is maximized via Hill’s directing prowess which makes it more than your average trash. The primary characters are all teens who have turned to the wrong side of the law as a result of being products of their environment, making their predicament all the more tragic. In fact, it would be more accurate to view the film as a story about warring factions struggling to obtain power, and Hill himself has noted that he based much of the story on Shakespeare’s Othello.

The depiction of violence in the film is done with severity, best realized during the film’s climax in which the Jezebels align themselves with a Maoist sect to take on the Crabs, in a bloody shootout that includes an armour-reinforced Cadillac.