Coffy

Coffy (1973)

Runtime: 91 minutes

Directed by: Jack Hill

Starring: Pam Grier, Booker Bradshaw, Robert DoQui, Sid Haig

From: American International Pictures

Here is a famous blaxplotation film; there’s a genre that I know about but haven’t seen too many films from. So, seeing that this would be on late last night on MGMHD, I knew I would have to check it out.

Overall, this was trashy fun. Grier plays a nurse who has a younger sister that almost passes away due to OD’ing on the smack. She’s upset at seeing the effects of drug use on young black people so she decides to get revenge on the drug dealer, and oh yes she does so in a memorable fashion. That’s just in the opening minutes. She’s then remorseful for what she did, and she confides that in both a politician boyfriend (Bradshaw) and a cop friend (William Elliott); well, she and the cop friend get attacked by masked men involved in the drug trade, he severely, and she finally has had enough and she goes on the warpath. From there, you see such things as items hidden in her hair, a big butch lesbian, catfights… oh, and nudity, plenty of nudity, both from Grier and many of the ladies in the cast. Even today with her age, Pam is an attractive lady, but back in the early 70’s, she was hot, and also amply endowed. The movie makes sure to show her topless rather frequently; not to be shallow, but I certainly didn’t complain about this obvious exploitation; I mean, after all it was released by AIP, so it’s almost expected from them.

However, this isn’t trash that has no merit to it. Rather, it’s a lot of fun and it has a genuinely entertaining and engrossing story. You have a strong female lead and an anti-drug message, which were both rather uncommon in blaxploitation, at least at the time. You have memorable bad guys and rather violent scenes (more than one of which involves a car doing something that you normally wouldn’t expect to see). You have memorable villains, like a big bald-headed guy with a foreign accent (Haig). So, it’s not difficult to see why it became an unexpected hit when it was first released; the nudity didn’t hurt, I’m sure, but the other stuff was a big help. That’s why they made Foxy Brown shortly after this; that’s something I need to see one of these days.

Oh, and after seeing this, I noticed that more than one part of this reminded me a lot of Black Dynamite. There’s the expected stereotypes from the genre, like the big hair, the loud clothes, the jive talkin’, the large cars (although there’s also a classic Mustang and an early 70’s Corvette; both looked great. The pimp’s outfits (he was played by DoQui, who was a police officer in Robocop and he’s far different here than in that role) were comically great in this day and age.

So, if you enjoy this genre and haven’t seen it yet, you really should. I’ll be back next weekend.