This low budget, black and white exploration feature set in the South plays its story out over the course of roughly six to eight hours. There is such a quasi documentary quality to the film I felt tempted to write it up like a newspaper article, capturing the rough timings of the comings and goings of the various characters over an eventful night.
At around the 9 o'clock hour Lewis Galen's Daniel was attending a tent revival service with his mother, standing near the back while the white attendees sat in folding chairs affront. It was there that he noticed the titular "Shanty Tramp" Emily Stryker (Played with some sensuality by Eleanor Vaill, an actress who would appear in only three films, all of which where released in 1967).
At the end of the service Emily asks the visiting reverend for a private meeting, the reverends assistant quickly puts the kebosh on this, fearing that meeting might get to be too private if you catch my meaning. Anyway the rev needs to rest up for the midnight meeting before pulling up stakes and heading further south in the wee hours. This servant of the Lord does suggest she might try him after that latter service, he then goes into his trailer to count from the collection plate.
Bored and looking for action Emily heads to the local club, dances for awhile with a seemingly nice man then switches partners to the head of a biker gang. Some time later the new couple seek out privacy in the club storage room.
Across town Daniel is getting anxious, hot and bothered from seeing the Shanty Tramp. His mother warns him not to go seeking her out at the midnight rivial service or in town, reminding him she is white and this is the same community that lynched his father when he was a young child. Unwisely Daniel ignores her, heads to the service, sees she is not there and makes his way to the club where he observes things from a distance.
In the storage room Emily and biker man get into a tussel when he decides not to pay her the agreed upon five dollars but still take his good time. Seeing things from the window Daniel swoops in, has a fight with biker man and knocks him out. An impressed Emily offers to give Daniel a freebie as a reward. He is leary but ultimately gives into his baser impulses.
Meanwhile at the revival Emily's town drunk father is moved by the spirit (the other kind) to seek out his daughter and get her saved. He finds her post coutious with a black man and don't care for that none. Emily surprises Daniel by telling her pops that she couldn't help it the black man overpowered her. Daniel's reaction to this, exclaiming "Are you serious!?" with a mixture of fear, indignation and 'I should have know better' is the film's greatest moment.
Pa heads out to round up the police and a lynch mob so Daniel wisely flees. He is unaware that biker man, upon regaining consciousness and finding out who Daniel is takes his gang to the house and kills his mother. Daniel steals a car full of moonshine and being chased by police crashes it into a tree, the moonshine explodes and Daniel dies a firey death.
Back at the tramps shanty pops has pieced together that his daughter lied and proceeds to beat her with his belt. Afterwords she seeks revange and beats her father as well, leaving wounds that will prove fatal. Emily flees to the site of the revival and catches the rev and his assistant just as they are about to leave, she hitches a ride with them and joins the reverend in his trailer as we fade out.
'Shanty Tramp' is of course exploitive sleaze, but the directions not half bad and there is a knowing cleverness to the whole proceedings, some real dark humor. That it touches on race relations at all is notable, but the brutality of its portrait of southern hypocrisy is what's memorable. Not quite art house trash, but rises slightly above meaningless filth into the world of social awareness. **1/2
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