Disco 9000 (1976)

Overrated and overhyped

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

After Foxy Brown (and the later black-esquire Jackie Brown-- both starring Pam Grier), Disco 9000 ranks among the greatest blaxploitation films. Lucky enough to own a 16mm print, I was able to view this otherwise lost gem of a picture. I very much recommend this picture.Fass Black is the owner of Disco 9000, and the record label, 9000. In his club, he only plays selections from his own label, and rightly so. After a pair of thugs want to muscle their own tracks into the disco, and Fass refuses, the pair send their jackboys off to do some dirty work. Fass is left to decide which is more important: his head or his pride.9/10

Made during the waning days of blaxploitation, this half-hearted attempt at an action quickie features a unique mix of poor acting, amateur night direction and dialog that must have been written on cocktail napkins. But what really sets the film apart is, for a movie actually set in a disco, it doesn't even manage to make the disco parts interesting! The music is awful, the dancers can't dance to it, and the costuming is actually dull! How the heck do you get dull costuming in a late '70s disco pic? That alone is a stunning cinematic achievement!The plot, to use the term in it's very broadest sense, has to do with Bellamy, an out of town music mogul, trying force L.A. disco king Fass Black into a distribution deal. The fact that Bellamy seems to produce country & western music, while Fass produces and distributes disco, doesn't seem to faze anyone for a moment.Also featured in this train wreck is ace tap dancer Harold Nicholas, (who dances not a step!) and a group of dancers from the "Soul Train" TV show who look continually frustrated trying to dance to the terrible soundtrack.

Someone is trying to ruin disco owner Fass Black. Black also owns the hottest record label in town and a rival mogul is trying to muscle in on his business because Black would not "play ball." The movie stars john Poole as Fass Black, with Harold Nicholas, Jeanie Bell and singer Johnnie Taylor. Two then-current its, "Disco Lady" and "Somebody's Gettin' It" are featured. The disco is located (though not mentioned) at 9000 Sunset Blvd. in West Hollywood. I know, because I passed by it many times during my time there.