PENITENTIARY-1979-A hitchhiker named Martel "Too Sweet" Gordone (Leon Isaac Kennedy) gets into a fight with two bikers over a prostitute . One of the bikers is killed and Gordone is sent to prison. There he falls in with a lot of violent (but in some respects cartoonish) black inmates. He has a weird fight with his super scary cell mate (Badja Djola) and later on gets involved in some prison boxing tournament run by a white lieutenant (Chuck Mitchell; later in PORKY'S) where the winners in each weight class get a night with a woman. He's trained by an old inmate "Seldom Seen" Jackson (Floyd "Wildcat" Chatman) who says "I'm a man. I ain't no hippy dippy fool". A transvestite comedian Wilbur "Hi-Fi" White plays Sweet Pea.
It's badly photographed, edited and acted but it is a violent, enjoyable ROCKY inspired "blaxploitation" movie. Director/producer/writer Jamaa Fanaka (nee Walter Gordon) made this 3 years after his last movie EMMA MAE and would make 2 sequels both starring the more than one emotion challenged Kennedy who retired in the late '80's to become a minister.
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