Based on a combination of a stolen pornographic novel and a short story account of an incident from the 1968 Detroit riots, in which a group of Black militants kidnapped a white woman. ‘Hot Summer in the City’ is an aggressive 40 page blacksploitation rape flick brought to life in horrifyingly intense detail. The Director and Writer Gail Palmer claims that at the time she wrote the film, she was unaware of what exactly ‘rape’ was, and that this film was intended to be seen more as a graphic portrayal of ‘raveshing’ shown alongside vivid social commentary on the race riots occuring around the time the film takes place. 

I dont know how much I believe that, Given the fact that everyone crewing this film more or less only agreed to take part in it if they could be anonymously credited. and that most of the cast wernt exactly ‘thrilled’ about it either. But despite its unsettling and grimey feeling and premise. Theres something rough about this film that makes it kind of an engrossing watch. 

The plots simple, the films set in 1967 and a young white couple who are saving themselves for marriage have just arrived home from a date. Debbie (our white blonde virgin for this film) expresses some sadness as her fathers recently passed away. However on leaving her date and heading into her home, she finds her mother in a three way with her friends dad and the neighbour. Shocked, she runs out of the house distraught, only to get cat called by a car full of black guys. When she doesnt respond to the calls, or offers of prostitution, they chase her down, bundle her into a car, rape her, and drive her back to their cabin. 

Once their, she assumes the role of the cabins housewife, cooking, cleaning and pouring drinks, and the guys take turns on her throughout the runtime. The guys are plotting some kind of disturbance or riot, but things get a bit complex when the leader of the gang ‘Duke’s’ partner, turns up and finds out that him and his friends have been passing Debbie around for kicks. leading to tensions rising and BIG confrontations, especially when Duke begins to actually develop feelings for Debbie. 

And…Im really struggling to find my feelings on this one, its a film that doesnt exactly paint black people in a great light, directed by a white female director who seemingly at that time didnt have a whole lot of worldly lived experiences…or if she did, she’s denying she did now. 

On its face value, I kind of have to call this what it is, a racist and unpleasent film in which all Black guys are rapist thugs who do nothing but beat people, drink, act aggressive and vulgar and hump anything that moves. But its that pure unrelenting nastiness that is probably the one thing that makes it stand out the most. Its a grubby little movie, that made me feel unsettled for having watched it…it’s kind of like ‘I spit on Your Grave’ if the big twist was that the victim eventually kind of got ‘into’ the molestation. 

The script only being 40 pages long, some scenes do drag quite a bit. theres an extended scene of the guys playing cards, which is a good character defining sequence, but it went on without cuts a bit longer than I personally would have liked. The first act feels elongated and a bit awkward, leading to a stubby 2nd act that doesnt really feel like it shifts up in pace and action, it rides that one tone and gear right up until we hit an even stubbier 3rd act that ends…well, it ends about as well as this film could have ended honestly. 

I’ll give the film this, it gives its characters some complexities and depth, and despite the short runtime, it manages to make those characters feel more intricate than most. the pacing may be slow, but the film does have some interesting moments that pull an audience in. the tones pretty bleak, but there is a slight camp streak running through this that just adds a little light to this very dark piece. its not a particularly ‘deep’ film…but its dealing with ‘deep’ themes in a ‘sledgehammer’ way that even for the time must have been controversial. In that sense, its abhorrent. but kind of mesmorising too. 

On the direction front, its minimalist. there was one camera and one camera man and Gail talked through the scenes with the cast and handled some of the lighting. Gail herself said she didnt really feel like a director was on set, but if anyone *would* have a directing credit, it’d probably be her…and that about checks out, as scenes arnt exactly eye popping. a lot of it is setting a camera up level with a table or a bed and then just guiding the cast through the scene in a mid wide, occasionally cutting to a close up. its ‘functional’.

Where the direction does step up quite a bit however, is the rape scenes themselves. Which feature slow motion (which was quite novel for the time) and some very interesting sequence building with actually quite impressive cinematography in places. onluy matched by some fairly solid editing. Including at least a couple of instances where the guys go to rape Debbie again, and they use quick cuts of the last rape to illustrate Debbies rushing thoughts as she realises whats about to happen again…Im not saying its right, but I am saying that was a pretty creative way to handle it.

I think my issue here is that the sex scenes themselves are catered to the male gaze…which is kind of irredeemable given these are rape scenes. Theses scenes arent shot to show that whats happening is a bad thing, they’re shot as if this is a deeply erotic thing to do…and its WEIRD…

Performance wise, its dry…VERY dry. The black guys on set basically had to script edit in real time because Gail wasnt very good at writing dialogue for black actors. But even with that being the case, the guys mumble through their lines, to the point I had to watch with subtitles to make out what was being said, and Debbie and her partner have almost no dialogue, but what dialogue they DID have was basically BEYOND poorly delivered. they struggled to remember their lines and regularly had to read from cue cards…but they deliver their lines like it was the first time they’d even seen them…its not great.

Bizarrely, the soundtrack for this film is a 60’s jukebox windup featuring ‘The Beach Boys’, ‘The Shangri-las’, ‘The Lovin Spoonful’ and many MANY more…Did they get the appropriate licenses for these tracks? HELL NO…and I dont think i’ve been more unsettled than seeing a woman squirm as a gang of guys run a train on her to ‘Good Vibrations’. It pops in and out of the film. But the timings on it are at least pretty okay…so that kind of works in the films favour. 

‘Hot Summer in the City’ is a shocker of a picture. I can believe naivity to a point, but there are some moments in this where I cant believe anything other than they wanted to make a movie to shock, horrify and sensationalise. It’s warped and unique take is abhorrent, but at the same time, I cant say I disliked this movie. the blacksploitation elements were compelling, the 2nd-3rd act ‘love story’ elements between Duke and Debbie were surreal to say the least and some of the cine in the sex scenes were striking and really quite powerful. 

This one absolutely wont be for everyone, I’d say if you didnt like ‘I Spit on your Grave’ for being too rape-centric…you REALLY wont like this one, but if Rape/Revenge films are your jam, you may actually kind of get on with this one.

Source – https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/hot-summer-in-the-city/