{"id":12311,"date":"2025-06-30T22:44:24","date_gmt":"2025-07-01T02:44:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=12311"},"modified":"2025-06-30T22:44:24","modified_gmt":"2025-07-01T02:44:24","slug":"sheba-baby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2025\/06\/30\/sheba-baby\/","title":{"rendered":"Sheba, Baby"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Sheba, Baby<\/strong> (1975)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 American International\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 90 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (violence, language, sexual references)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: William Girdler\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: William Girdler and David Sheldon\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Monk Higgins\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: William Asman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: March 26, 1975 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Pam Grier, Austin Stoker, D\u2019Urville Martin, Rudy Challenger, Dick Merrifield, Christipher, Charles Kissinger, Charles Broaddus, Maurice Downes, Ernest Cooley, Edward Reece, William Foster Jr., Bobby Cooley, Paul Grayber, Sylvia Jacobson.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $6M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0A few years ago, Jennifer Lawrence claimed (INCORRECTLY!) that \u201cnobody had ever put a woman in the lead of an action movie\u201d prior to The Hunger Games in 2012*. Uh, EXCUSE YOU?! Has this girl never seen or heard of Aliens starring Sigourney Weaver? Or better yet, Pam Grier? The blaxploitation bad ass made a few actioners of her own- e.g. Coffy (1973), Foxy Brown (1974) and Sheba, Baby<\/strong>. I think Jennifer needs to bone up on cinema history.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In Sheba, Baby<\/strong>, Pam plays Sheba Shayne, a former cop-turned-private investigator who comes home to Louisville on family business. Criminal types, acting under the orders of crime lord Pilot (Martin, Dolemite), are attempting to convince her father Andy (Challenger, Detroit 9000) to sell his loan company to the local Mr. Big. He refuses which makes them double down on their efforts. His assistant Brick (Stoker, Assault on Precinct 13) sends word about the situation to Sheba in Chicago. She, of course, wastes no time hopping on a plane.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Sheba starts her own investigation after the local police (her former colleagues) prove to be about as useful as a prophylactic dispenser in a convent. Pilot, feeling the heat, has his boys hire outside help to deal with the situation. It results in Andy\u2019s death and Sheba\u2019s fury. She proceeds to track down all involved parties including the creep behind it all, a white gangster named Shark (Merrifield, Five the Hard Way).<\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019ve read some bad reviews of Sheba, Baby<\/strong> on-line and while I\u2019ll grant it\u2019s one of Pam Grier\u2019s lesser films, it\u2019s not bad by any definition. It\u2019s an enjoyable B-movie actioner directed by William Girdler whose resume includes the blaxploitation Exorcist rip-off Abby (1974) and two nature gone wild horrors, Grizzly (1976) and The Day of the Animals (1977). It\u2019s nothing special with its formulaic plot and standard-issue characters. Fortunately, the star of the show raises it a couple of notches.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I said it before and I\u2019ll say it again, Pam Grier is a beautiful black bad ass. She gives it to the bad guys but good in Sheba, Baby<\/strong>. In one bit, she hides in the back seat of a pimp\u2019s car and forces information out of him while they\u2019re going through a car wash. She helpfully reminds him that he ordered hot wax before he finally tells her what she wants to know. This pimp Walker (Joy, Cleopatra Jones) is an American classic with his flashy outfit and jive talking (e.g. \u201cDo I look like the Colored Bureau of Information?\u201d). Pam\u2019s best line, however, has to be \u201cYou better talk, big man, before I put my number one foot down your number one mouth.\u201d I love tough gal dialogue like that.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Pam is also good with weapons. This time she gets to take somebody out with a speargun during a motorboat chase. That\u2019s after she infiltrates a private party Shark hosts on his yacht. Yes, she gets into a fight with another woman. What\u2019s a Pam Grier movie without a good cat fight? There\u2019s also a good chase through a fair in which she threatens to let a roller coaster roll over a thug\u2019s head unless he coughs up the name of the top guy. Another guy gets his face repeatedly dunked into a bucket of granulated chlorine until he gives up an address.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Sheba, Baby<\/strong> benefits from a groovy supporting cast lead by Stoker as Sheba\u2019s partner-in-crime stopping. He does all the investigatory work while she\u2019s out kicking butt. Martin provides comic relief as the crime boss who\u2019d be scary if he wasn\u2019t so incompetent. Merrifield is fine but unmemorable as the token white baddie. Speaking of stock characters, Charles Kissinger (Grizzly) shows up as the white, borderline racist cop who used to work with Sheba. He\u2019s not thrilled about her being on the case, but what choice does he have? He\u2019s the unintentional comic relief.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Sheba, Baby<\/strong> is the exact kind of movie that used to get paired with a bigger title on a double bill. It\u2019s an entertaining diversion. It\u2019s has plenty of action and it has Pam Grier. It does exactly what it set out to do, no more and no less.<\/p>\n

*= Ms. Lawrence has since clarified her comment explaining that it came out wrong and what she meant to say was that The Hunger Games proved a lot of people wrong about the viability of female-led action movies.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sheba, Baby (1975)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 American International\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 90 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (violence, language, sexual references)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: William Girdler\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: William Girdler and David Sheldon\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Monk Higgins\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: William Asman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: March 26, 1975 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Pam Grier, Austin Stoker, D\u2019Urville Martin, Rudy Challenger, Dick Merrifield, Christipher, Charles Kissinger, Charles Broaddus, Maurice Downes, Ernest Cooley, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12329,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-action-adventure","category-b-movies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Sheba-Baby-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12311"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12331,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12311\/revisions\/12331"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}