Coffy

From nurse to bad ass avenger.

Pam Grier made many movies in the 1970s, but 1973's Coffy as much as anything, is the one role on which her reputation as the Queen of blaxploitation rests. After a bit part in a Russ Meyer movie (his classic 'Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls'), Jack Hill, former Roger Corman protege and director of the creepy cult favourite 'Spider Baby', "discovered" her and gave her two strong roles in his popular chicks-in-chains movies 'The Big Doll House' and 'The Big Bird Cage'. Then Hill wrote and directed 'Coffy', a hugely entertaining revenge thriller that really showcases Pam Grier's talent and charisma to the max. The movie was hugely successful and made Grier an exploitation superstar. Instead of a female James Bond character like Cleopatra Jones(our next review), Hill made Coffy a regular working class black woman (a nurse as a matter of fact), who must use her brains and looks to achieve her goal - revenge for the drug addiction of her kid sister. 

The movie crosses elements seen in the male blaxploitation classics of the period like 'Superfly' and 'Shaft'(I'm sorry fellow readers, we still haven't upload our reviews for each film, but soon we'll update our blaxploitation catalog massively) with the vigilante genre which would really kick off with the success of 'Death Wish' the following year (yup, 'Coffy' PREDATES 'Death Wish', so let's get that straight). Grier is sensational in this movie. She can act, she's tough, she pulls off the action scenes with credibility, and of course she looks great, and there is a fair bit of nudity. Grier went on to movies like 'The Arena', 'Sheba, Baby' and 'Drum' before the blaxploitation boom burst, but it's a pity that she only made one more movie with Jack Hill ('Foxy Brown' another brilliant piece that will be reviewed properly very soon) because they were a dynamite team bringing out the best in each other. 'Coffy' has some interesting supporting cast members including Allan Arbus (best know to fans of TV's 'M.A.S.H.') as Mob boss Vitroni, future 'Robocop' actor Robert DoQui as flamboyant pimp King George, and the brilliant Sid Haig as the sleazy Omar. Haig was a regular Grier co-star throughout the 1970s and Jack Hill's favourite actor ever since his breakthrough role in 'Spider Baby'. 

Say hello to my little friend!

She had a shotgun before shotguns were cool.

"Coffy" has got to be one of the slickest pieces of entertainment ever created, not to mention the penultimate "Blaxploitation" cinema experience. It's a credit to everyone involved in the film that the story could be so gratuitously nonsensical and contrived and still seem completely logical while it's happening. It's like a comic book come to life.

Pam Grier plays Coffy, a nurse who goes on a murderous rampage after her sister overdoses on drugs supplied by a "pusher" who knows that Coffy is sending her money. From the opening scene, where Coffy pulls a severely-sawed-off shotgun out of her macramé purse to blast a big-time drug dealer to hell, the frantic pace never lets up until the bitter, seething end.

After making her first "hit", Coffy's vengeance is further stoked when her do-good cop friend is taken out by the dirty dealers for not accepting a payoff. Coffy blows her top and takes some time off work to really go for the jugular, working her way through the city's drug cartel by posing as a Jamaican hooker named "Mystique". It's not hard--she gets the vital information in a hilarious scene involving a woman named Priscilla, whose "old man," Harriet, turns out to be more than Coffy bargained for.

Her body is her ultimate weapon.

White sluts do their part in Coffy too.

The genius in the film is in the way that Coffy manages to manipulate her way through all of these scenarios. Even the hardest criminals are putty in her hands, and she never looks more beautiful than when she is covered in scratches, grime, and wielding a shotgun. She has a seemingly endless bag of tricks, several of which involve weapons hidden in her astonishing afro. She's comfortable around a gun, but she'll use any old thing lying around to wreak her vengeance: a broken wine bottle, a hypodermic needle full of dope, a makeshift shiv, even a convenient rock lying on the side of the road.

By the time the climax rolls around, the film has become deliriously exciting, building continuously upwards until you think it might collapse in on itself. But it doesn't. "Coffy" stands tall, even over the strains of a closing song that tells us "Revenge is a virtue." This film is nearly perfect in every way.  

Stay tuned for we will continue checking Pam Grier's amazing films and other blaxploitation classics that DO deserve room in a self-proclaimed "connoisseur" blog like yours truly. 

Classy pimps.

Oh, by the way! Happy holidays!

Here's the movie trailer: