Cleopatra Jones

This film is everything I hoped it would be and then some. Full of the fun of the '70s civil rights clashes all over America, comes this sweet-ass blaxploitation film. God help me, I love it. Chock to the brim with funky hep-cat street talk, slick outfits and big ol' afro hair. Mm-hmmm, this is the shit alright!

The caricatures of public officials and street-wise hip folks are comical by today’s standard, but add to the charm of this period piece. Plenty of cool one-liners and funky dialogue sparkle like water in the afro throughout this solid film. Oh yeah, solid.

Cleopatra Jones (Tamara Dobson) is in the middle-east destroying a poppy field with a street value of $30 million. This is controlled by Mommy (Shelley Winters), a big ol' white lady making money from misery in the projects. Deciding they need her back in the States so as to get rid of her, they use a crooked cop to plant drugs in a Safe House that’s been set up to help kids get off the junk. When Cleo, a special agent for the US government, gets back home she goes after Mommy in a big way to find out who set up the good folks of the House. And if she doesn’t find out within 72 hours a race riot is gonna break out all over the city. It’s a big problem, but only Cleopatra Jones can save the day.

"See you around, Super-Honky!"

With some wooden and cheesy (together at last!) performances and some very stilted fight scenes, the film still shines with cool '70s originality and verve. Cleopatra’s wardrobe seems to harbour every kind of dead animal that ever wore fur (I was reminded of The Simpsons' Dr. Julius Hibbert saying, "Fur isn’t murder, but paying it for it sure is! Uh-heah-heah-heah" etc.), not to mention the leather and snakeskin. There’s a cool car chase that ends up in that eternal LA aquaduct (you know the one... Grease, Terminator 2 and The Gumball Rally among myriad others all used it) plus gunfights. And a great final scene reminiscent of James Bond villain-style killing of the hero. That’s right, baby, this film’s got it all. Cleo even has her own Corvette equipped with an arsenal of automatic weapons. Sweeeeet!

The acting sucks and the story is weak, but the film has a solid heart of soul in its messages and its application. Don’t buy it for the action, git it fer the awesome period costumes and the classic kung-fu before they used wires. (I called it ‘Wire-Fu’ to a friend the other day, but he thought ‘Hung-Fu’ was better. I’ll let you decide.)

Cleopatra is seriously good fun to git yer freak on.

The Warner Brothers have delivered a sweet-arse transfer in the original 2.35:1 aspect ratio with 16:9 enhancement. Like a well-oiled Corvette, this film runs sweet and smooth throughout, baby. The picture quality is clear as crystal and as to the colour palette, well, there are hundreds of variegated colours and all have been well padded and well saturated. You’ll think you're in 1973 all over again.

Flesh tones for all types of folks are even and natural and shadow detail is surprisingly okay. There are some instances where things get a little gloomy, but for the most part it's well lit. This includes several night shots as well where there are running gun battles and stuff. Cool. And, of course, there are gonna be some film artefacts in a film this age, but there are surprisingly few. Being in such a huge ratio format, the reel markers haven’t been removed and are quite clearly visible throughout as well.

Dolby Digital stereo brings us every sweet rolling jazz riff and heavy bass line throughout, and I don’t need to tell you how many of these there is. Every available scene gets its own wokka-wokk-wokka as Cleo tracks down Mommy and her bad boys (it creates intrigue, I’m led to believe, and '70s tension). The same bass can be heard in any old cop show from the period. J.J.Johnson created the funky tunes for this film and while it does sound a lot like every other blaxploitation movie and cop show, it suits things well here.

Dialogue is awesome, with so much authentic jive talkin' you will walk away (or strut away) from this film having learned an expression or two. I was pleased to hear the use of the word ‘honky’ I gotta say. That one just doesn’t get used enough and I love it. As to sound effects, they sound like they opened a can of ‘em in post-production and went nuts with whatever stock stuff came out. That’s okay though, because it suits the cheapo style of the film, but you gotta wonder at a bullet whining as it ricochets off a tree, haven’t you? Oh well.

Sadly no extras. Shee-it!

I had a blast watching this movie. It’s so cool in a really tacky way. While the story is a little lacking, the costumes on Ms Jones and co. are really something else. Fight scenes haven’t been rehearsed nearly enough and the shootouts are kinda comic, but the film is sweet in its own way. Films like this have a certain charm and I find it hard to resist them.

Get into it for the fun of it and for the fact that blaxpoitation hasn’t looked this great in years. The last copy of this sort of film I saw was Black Samson ('He been Samsonized!') and it was on grainy video stock seriously lacking quality. There’s also plenty of fun with Shelley Winters doing her usual worst as well, in her overblown role of Mommy. What a rumble between she and Cleo.

Ohhhh yeah!