The Jezebels (1975)

Director:

Jack Hill

Writers:

Jack Hill (story)
F.X. Maier (screenplay)

Release Date:

May 1975 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Crime | Drama

Tagline:

They'd Rather Kill Their Man Than Lose Him

Plot:

The "Dagger Debs" are a gang of snarling girls, and Maggie is their newest member. Lace, the ever tooth-gritting leader...

Plot Keywords:

Gang | High School | Drugs | Murder | Eye Patch

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

Robbie Lee	...	Lace
Joanne Nail	...	Maggie
Monica Gayle	...	Patch
Asher Brauner	...	Dominic
Chase Newhart	...	Crabs
Marlene Clark	...	Muff
Kitty Bruce	...	Donut
Janice Karman	...	Bunny
Don Stark	...	Hook
Don Marino	...	Guido
Helene Nelson	...	Cherry
Bill Adler	...	Fingers
Paul Lichtman	...	Mr. Clutch
J.S. Johnson	...	Principal Weasel
Kate Murtagh	...	Mom Smackley

Also Known As:

Playgirl Gang (USA) (reissue title)
Switchblade Sisters (USA) (reissue title)

Runtime:

91 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

West Germany:18 | Australia:R | USA:R | Germany:BPjM Restricted

Company:

Centaur Pictures Inc.

Trivia:

Director Jack Hill, when interviewed at the 1996 re-release of the film, pointed out that it did have some authenticity - he interviewed girl gang members and rewrote the script. "But the idea of doing a realistic movie about street gangs with beautiful blondes in hot pants was preposterous, so we tried to make it a wacky fantasy."

Quotes:

Muff: You know, sooner or later every woman's bound to find out - the only thing a man's got below his belt is clay feet.

Movie Connections:

Edited into 42nd Street Forever, Volume 4: Cooled by Refrigeration (2009) (V)

Sensational Seventies She-Devils!

Jack Hill's 'Switchblade Sisters' is a wild ride that will have you hooked from the get go! It's everything I hoped Ted V. Mikels disappointing 'The Doll Squad' was going to be - a trashy, campy slice of 1970s exploitation that manages to be self-parodic AND take its subject matter seriously simultaneously. Happily, 'Switchblade Sisters' is so good you'd think you'd dreamed it yourself.

Robbie Lee plays Lace the Debs' leader, and fulfills all the promise she showed in Roger Corman's 'Big Bad Mama' the previous year. She's cute but deadly, and why she never became a major star is hard to fathom. Most of the other girls, particularly gang newcomer Maggie (Joanne Nail), and Lace's former second in command Patch (Monica Gayle), are also sexy and dangerous, but none show the sheer charisma of Lee's Lace, surely up there with Tura Satana, Pam Grier or Raven de la Croix as a proto-feminist icon of the drive-in era.

'Switchblade Sister' is trash par excellence. You will both laugh at and laugh with the Dagger Debs and their rival gang, the disco-dudded Crabs, who could easily walk off this movie and straight into 'The Warriors', another surreal gang movie, directed by another Hill, Walter. Both Hill's deserve their place in psychotronic history!