I don’t know of any other giallo or giallo adjacent movies with a Barry White soundtrack.
Mr. Kool (Ed Bernard) is a black policeman who patrols the worst parts of the hood, but has the respect of nearly everyone, including The Dudes, a kid gang that includes H.J. (Ahmad Nurradin), his borther Tommy (Anthony Wilson), Monk (Owen Pace ), A.P. (Nelson Sims), Mau-Mau (Kenneth Bell) and Gri-Gri (Kim Dorsey).
One night, Tommy is following Mr. Kool when the cop is shot and killed. While the killer starts to slice up the body, Tommy screams, which causes the assassin to try to shoot him. Tommy loses his speech because he’s so frightened, and The Dudes promise to find out who the killer is. Before that, Tommy gets kidnapped by Billy Most (Lincoln Kilpatrick) and Maria (Craig Campfield) and H.J.’s girlfriend Francine (Angela Gibbs) is killed. They have to save Tommy, find the real killer and do it all without the cops.
Director William Graham also made The Hunt for the Unicorn Killer, Calendar Girl Murders, Beyond the Bermuda Triangle, Return to the Blue Lagoon and Birds of Prey. This is written by Jack DeWitt (A Man Called Horse) and Joe Greene.
The downer is that the bad guy is a mincing gay stereotype. Otherwise, the film is an interesting idea: a blaxploitation film that doesn’t glorify crime and that has the detective element of the giallo.
You can watch this on YouTube.
