These days Spielberg's "The Color Purple" is mostly remembered for being nominated for eleven Oscars and winning zilch. What's even more alarming is that Spielberg himself wasn't even nominated for Best Director. Needless to say, the film-makers deserved more acclaim than they were accorded.
The story concerns the trials and tribulations of Celie Johnson (Whoopi Goldberg), an African-American woman dominated at first by her incestuous father and then by her abusive husband. The film spans several years and focuses mainly on Celie's relationships with the women around her. It's told from a decidedly female perspective but you needn't fear that it's a saccharine 'chick flick'.
The story is an interesting one, livened with humour at times although the central character's struggles are paramount. Some may not appreciate the change in tone towards the film's end but I didn't mind even though similar content in a lesser film would likely have me rolling my eyes.
The film received three Oscar nominations for acting: Whoopi Goldberg (Best Actress), Oprah Winfrey (Best Supporting Actress) and Margaret Avery (Best Supporting Actress). I think that Goldberg and Winfrey were certainly deserving and Danny Glover was unaccountably stiffed.
As already mentioned, Spielberg didn't receive a Best Director nomination for his efforts. Such an omission beggars belief, since Spielberg's direction here is top-notch. I'm not especially crazy about Quincy Jones's score but it's not below average by any means.
In the end, the story is a satisfying one, well-told by a master film-maker working from Pulitzer Prize-winning material. Give it a try and you'll probably be as baffled as I am about how it could be so poorly treated on Oscar night.

From the start, you know this is a Sam Sherman film more than an Al Adamson film because as the credits roll, "A Sam Sherman Production" appears in letters as big as the title credit. Not only that, Mr. Sherman co-wrote the screenplay and it was his idea to use Bob Livingstone, a washed-up, 69 year old Western star of the old Hollywood era to be his male lead in a picture that Sherman thought would capitalize on the recent success of "Swinging Stewardesses".
Now why would you want to have a wrinkled old man as your male lead in what is supposed to be a soft-core exploitation feature? It defies explanation, but that is Sam Sherman for you. His obsession with old Hollywood colored a lot of his films for Independent International Pictures, and he and Al Adamson frequently tried to get has-been actors for their films (e.g. J. Carrol Naish, Russ Tamblyn, Lon Chaney Jr.,etc.). But Bob Livingstone? Tell me the drive-in demographic knew who this '40's second-rater was; it's ridiculous!
But then again, "Naughty Stewardesses" was a successful picture for them, so we can't just write this off as a Sherman fiasco. Still, by any aesthetic standard, it's an incoherent mess. Al Adamson wanted out of this picture, and it is easy to see why. First off, it has no genre focus at all and drifts around from super soft core (tits and ass/simulated sex only) to a kidnapping thriller (shades of Steckler's "Rat Pfink and Boo Boo"!) In between, we get subjected to painfully boring sequences of the stewardesses traipsing around Vegas to the hackneyed music of Sparrow, or Richard Smedley and Connie Hoffmann on a photo shoot in San Francisco. Worst of all, we get Bob Livingstone as a Jack LaLanne wannabe in a blue jumpsuit trying to be sexy...gag! (Thankfully, his big sex scene with Connie Hoffmann was deleted, but you can catch him slurping on her titties on the DVD in the Special Features section. Creepy.)
This is a terrible, terrible movie, but I'll give it three stars for Gary Graver's photography and out of sympathy to Connie Hoffmann for having to make it with "Wrinkles" Livingstone. "Naughty Stewardesses" is for Al Adamson completists and/or scholars of exploitation film as Sam Sherman's commentary offers vital inside info. All others, BEWARE.