Jim Brown went from an NFL career to become one of the most popular blaxploitation screen stars of his era, and The Slams, for which you see a promo poster above, proves it. This was the second Brown movie to hit U.S. screens in a month, coming today in 1973, hot on the heels of Slaughter’s Big Rip-Off, which had premiered on August 31. Unlike that film, in The Slams Brown is on the wrong side of the law. He’s thrown in supermax after a robbery and violent doublecross. $1.5 million in cash and a shipment of heroin are missing, and the prison authorities, the police, the mafia, and Brown’s cellmates all want a piece. He actually threw the heroin in the ocean, but the money is secreted away.
Brown is facing one to five years inside, which he figures he can do easily, but the mafia—who he robbed of the cash and drugs—wants him dead. He’s attacked even before he’s placed in his cell, and the bad guys keep coming. But Brown is saying nothing about the money. It’s the only thing keeping him alive. He could potentially leverage everyone’s greed into release, protection, or anything else he wants, but his plan is to do his time, get out, recover the cash, and disappear. But his timeline changes—urgently—when he learns from the prison television that the place he hid the money is going to be demolished. Escape becomes his only choice.
Low budget ’70s action movies rarely weather well, but we thought The Slams was actually rather good. Better acting would be helpful, but on the whole Brown is about on par with everyone else in terms of thespian talent, and he brings an intangible extra to the screen—charisma. His physicality works in his favor, and his cool delivery of dialogue provides gravity. Being a vintage movie, the language is off the charts incendiary, with n-bombs and f-bombs (not fuck—the other kind) flying left and right, so viewers who might be sensitive to that should take a pass. Otherwise, we recommend The Slams for blaxploitation fans, and give it a cautious thumbs up for fans of ’70s actioners. It premiered today in 1973.
