Emma Mae

Emma Mae (1976)

*** (out of 4)

Emma Mae (Jerri Hayes) moves from the South out to the ghetto in Los Angeles and it doesn't take long for her to get involved with JEsse (Ernest WIlliams II). Emma believes that the two of them are in love and when he's arrested and thrown into jail she decides to support him any way she can. This includes committing a crime to try and protect her man but she's got a lot to learn.

Director Jamaa Fanaka will always be remembered for the PENITENTIARY trilogy but there's no question that this here, his second feature film, is his best work. The film has been re-released under the title BLACK SISTER'S REVENGE but that's just a fake title to try and pass it off as some sort of exploitation movie and that's certainly not what the film is. This here is basically a very good character study about a young woman in a new environment and having to learn that not everything is as it seems.

I was really impressed with how good this movie actually was and I really liked how it didn't fall into the various stereotypes that were common with these films. There are two cops here that start abusing their power and get all of the mess started yet they are the white racists that we normally see. These are two black cops that get things going and the film has a certain message about people sitting around killing one another off without achieving anything in life. There are some really good moments here where the director gets his point across without having to preach.

Hayes is extremely believable in her role as the tough Southern girl who might need to learn a few things but she's also got things to teach to others. The actress was very good in the role and there's no question that you felt that she really was this character. Williams was also extremely good in the role of the worthless boyfriend and his fits of anger rang true and authentic. I also enjoyed Malik Carter who plays the wise old man.

It's really too bad that this film here isn't better known. I think the problem is that people probably get to know the director through his exploitation pictures and then they check this out and are disappointed that it's not more of the same. EMMA MAE is certainly an interesting little gem that deserves to be seen.

Not the best cast and acting by any stretch and no familiar faces but I have to say it was intriguing enough to watch thru to the end. A really really nice soundtrack! Wish I could find that to buy!

It was a 3 movie but I give it a 10 for being made!! But I still enjoyed it and would buy it. In fact I would love the soundtrack, any one know who sang the songs about cornbread and milk and walking with Bettie Lou....the opening and ending song.....and the one they slow dancing to I'm in love with you, don't you know it. I lived in a small town and back in the day boys did think country girls were easy to get and try to exploit. The storyline was good, could have used some work, but it was funded by the National Endowment for Arts so I respect it and see it as that an art piece. Loved it!!! Please send information on sound track to caribqueen58@live.com thanks.

I only took the two points because of the budget. This is a very good moving for a low budget. It is one I grow up watching as little girl and enjoyed the storyline, acting and step into time. Now I share with my children. The acting is very good from the two leads, Jerrie Hayes and Ernst Williams. Although, not a very common story line, the story line is one we may still need to pay attention to today. There are many lessons to be learned from this moving. Although they may have lost me in there mean to an end action to free Zeke and Jesse. It doesn't ways work out this way in life, but it is a movie. Nevertheless, there were still great meaning behind the film. We need to understand who we are, what we are living for and is it worth the cost? I really wish more projects like this one could have been produced. I would have loved to see both Hayes and Williams in other productions. I believe that both of them may have been overlooked. I guess there wasn't very many roles available to someone with such beautiful skin and talent. LOL.

Interesting film made when its director Jamaa Fanaka, was a film school student at my alma mater, UCLA, just as Blaxploitation was waning and ten years before the advent of more radically political/social cinematic explorations of African American life such as "Do The Right Thing" and "Boyz n The Hood". This film is poised in between the two genres, but leaning more forward than back, in my opinion, particularly in its denouement when the importance of the community, certainly a large part of Lee's movies, if not Singleton's, is stressed over that of the seductive Super Cool individual, a staple of Blaxploitation. While this theme is strongly and forcefully stated, with good pacing and well handled action scenes, the acting, as befits most student and/or low budget indy productions, is undeniably on the stiff side. Less forgivable is the story character lapse in the screenplay, also by Fanaka, involving Jesse, the drug pusher and abusive boyfriend of the title character. When Emma Mae denounces him in the powerful final scene a lot of that power is vitiated due to Jesse's having been seen throughout most of the film by everyone but Emma Mae as more of a stoned out doofus than a false messiah as she states as she's kicking his ass.. Therefore, we're treated to the always salutary Woman Whups Abusive Man's Butt but falling well short of Community Over Individual which, as I understand it, is what Fanaka was after. So, let's give it a B minus and look forward to watching this good director's most well known work, "Penitentiary".