“Someone better turn the fan on. I think the temperature’s rising.”

Drake’s rating: Like I’m ever not going to gush over a Pam Grier movie

Drake’s review: Pam Grier had already made two films with director Jack Hill by 1973, co-starring in The Big Doll House and The Big Bird Cage, a pair of women-in-prison flicks for New World Pictures that really made the genre bankable in the early 1970s. But it was over at American International Pictures that Grier’s career as a cult movie icon really got started, and it’s all because of a guy named Larry Gordon.

Gordon was AIP’s head of production at the time, and thought he had a deal for an upcoming flick called Cleopatra Jones. But when that movie went to Warner Bros. instead, Gordon became intent on beating Cleopatra Jones to the theaters and enlisted Hill to come up with a blaxploitation movie of his own. Hill in turn wrote Coffy with Pam Grier in mind for the title role, and got it filmed, edited, and in theaters a full two months ahead of their competition.

And in doing so, he and Grier created a kick-ass action heroine some six years before Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley woke up in the Nostromo, and over a decade before Sarah Connor was fighting her first Terminator.

Now of course Flower Child Coffin, or “Coffy” as she’s more commonly known, might not be dealing with vicious aliens and killer cyborgs, but that doesn’t make her adversaries any less dangerous. In fact, the pimps and drug dealers that Coffy has to face down are a downright despicable bunch. Coffy already has a grudge against them as her sister died from an overdose, and now they’ve bought themselves some extra help in the form of several local cops.

But Coffy’s policeman friend Carter isn’t the type to be swayed by dirty money, and he takes a firm stand in just saying no to a dealer’s offer. That decision leads to harrowing consequences for Carter, and gives Coffy just one more reason to hunt down the bad guys and make them pay. And pay they do, because Coffy is no stranger to violence and dishes out some good ol’ grindhouse damage to anyone who crosses her. Which in this case is pretty much everyone in the movie.

Coffy is one of those films that I’d describe as being not necessarily a very good movie but a great exploitation flick. The acting is all over the place, with a few decent performances shoehorned in between some fairly stilted ones. Even Grier herself is, surprisingly, a bit wooden in this one, although that might be the result of her taking the center stage as a solo act for the first time. And the dialogue very much has that “first draft” feel, which could actually be the case considering how quickly Coffy went into production.

But then, that’s the stuff low-budget exploitation flicks are made of. Hill, a solid hand behind the camera, keeps Coffy rolling right along and just steamrolls over any plot holes without a second thought. He’s not as concerned with plot arcs and deep characterization as he is with having Coffy get mad and get even. Which she does with violent regularity and the aid of razor blades, cars, and shotguns.

Coffy just isn’t the discrete sort.

Coffy opened the way for more black action heroines to storm onto the screen, even if it was for an unfortunately brief time. Jeanne Bell starred in TNT Jackson the following year, Cleopatra Jones did well enough to warrant a sequel, Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold, in 1975, and Grier herself was busy with films like Friday Foster and Sheba, Baby until the blaxploitation genre began to run out of steam after the mid-1970s.

Which was a real bummer, man!

Coffy is one of those exploitation flicks that lives up to its billing. It’s loud and violent, like its heroine, but it never backs down from its premise. It’s Coffy on one side and everyone else on the other, and you get the feeling she wouldn’t have it any other way. The movie’s poster calls her “The baddest One-Chick Hit-Squad that ever hit town!” which is undeniable truth in advertising and tells you exactly what you’re in for.

Which, in the case of Coffy, is a good ol’ grindhousey time, minus the creaky seats and sticky floors. Unless you’re watching this in the Mutant Office Basement, in which case you get both.

Intermission!

• If you recognize King George, that might be because Robert DoQui played Sgt. Warren Reed in all three RoboCop movies.
• Hill and Grier teamed together one more time, for Foxy Brown in 1974. Hill then went on to create the infamous Switchblade Sisters, a Quentin Tarantino favorite. Spoiler: It’s pretty bad, but I think you probably guessed that already.
• Grier herself didn’t feature in the lead role of many more movies after her 1970’s breakthrough, which I personally consider a cinematic crime. A few post-70’s highlights include her turn as a drugged-out killer in Fort Apache, The Bronx, the tough as nails chemistry teacher Miss Connors in Mark L. Lester’s Class of 1999, and the beleaguered but no-nonsense divorced mother Louise Williams in Mars Attacks! She was also the only awesome thing about Escape from L.A.
• Say what you want about Tarantino, he was wise enough to not only option an Elmore Leonard story but to cast Grier as the lead in Jackie Brown, one of my favorite of his films.