CLEOPATRA JONES (1973)

Cleopatra Jones (Tamara Dobson) is a federal drug agent currently stationed in Turkey; when we first see her, she is overseeing the destruction by flame of a $30 million poppy field. Back in the States, the owner of that poppy field, Mommy (Shelly Winters), a bewigged cartoonish lesbian crime boss, vows revenge and starts by getting a contact in the Los Angeles police force to stage a raid on a halfway house for addicts started by Cleo and run by Reuben, who seems to be Cleo's occasional lover. This is calculated to bring Cleo back to the U.S. and trouble starts as soon as she gets off the plane with a shoot-out at the airport that leads to one dead hitman slumped on the baggage carousel. Mommy has competent henchmen, but she's running into trouble with Doodlebug (Antonio Fargas), one of her more powerful pushers who is beginning to chafe under Mommy's control. Cleo has the police force behind her, but she knows there is at least one corrupt cop on Mommy's payroll, and she goes to kindly Mrs. Johnson (Esther Rolle), a diner owner, and enlists the help of two sons, martial arts experts Matthew and Melvin, to ferret out the bad apple and bring about Mommy's downfall.

This came out during the first wave of blaxploitation flicks, gritty movies with Black heroes or anti-heroes (like Shaft and Superfly) battling "the Man" on big city streets. But this has more in common with secret agent films. Jones, six feet tall, dresses in fabulous colorful outfits, seemingly a different one for each scene, and has an attitude that puts her above the street hassles that the Black genre films of the 70s often dealt with. As great as Tamara Dobson looks, her performance is a bit hollow—her background was in fashion modeling and she still has a bit of the emotionless mannequin feel about her here. But she sure looks the part, and her supporting cast carries the rest of the film. Winters has a blast chewing the scenery and grabbing the ass of every young woman in sight. Fargas also has fun with the showy role of Doodlebug; at one point, sick of his sideman responding to everything by saying "That’s right," he complains that he's gonna "die of that's-right-icide!" Rolle (best known from TV as Florida on Maude and Good Times) is a welcome sight though she only has one short scene. But the handsome guys who play her karate-chopping sons (Albert Popwell and Caro Kenyatta) are highlights of the cast. Also with Dan Frazer as a good cop, Stafford Morgan has his right-hand man, and Bill McKinney as a total sleazeball. There is a great car chase (Cleo drives a slick blue Corvette) filmed at the same site as the drag car race in Grease, and the finale in a car junkyard is memorable. There's a sequel I plan to track down soon. Recommended. [Criterion Channel]