{"id":3867,"date":"2024-09-06T13:57:31","date_gmt":"2024-09-06T13:57:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=3867"},"modified":"2024-10-13T19:18:34","modified_gmt":"2024-10-13T23:18:34","slug":"cleopatra-jones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/09\/06\/cleopatra-jones\/","title":{"rendered":"Cleopatra Jones"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Cleopatra Jones <\/strong>(1973)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Warner Bros.\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 89 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (violence, language, sensuality, drugs)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Jack Starrett\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Max Julien and Sheldon Keller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: J.J. Johnson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: David M. Walsh\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: July 13, 1973 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Tamara Dobson, Bernie Casey, Brenda Sykes, Antonio Fargas, Shelley Winters, Dan Frazer, Bill McKinney, Stafford Morgan, Paul Koslo, Joseph A. Tornatore, Hedley Mattingly, Michael Warren, Albert Popwell, Caro Kenyatta, Theodore Wilson, George Reynolds, Esther Rolle, Keith Hamilton, Jay Montgomery, Arnold Dover, Angela Gibbs, John Alderman.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $2.9M (US)<\/p>\n

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

\u00a0At a statuesque 6\u2019 2\u201d, Tamara Dobson is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the tallest actress to ever play a leading role in a film. That film is Cleopatra Jones<\/strong>, a blaxploitation classic starring Dobson as a government agent trying to take down an evil drug lord named Mommy. Mommy is played by, of all people, two-time Academy Award winner Shelley Winters (The Diary of Anne Frank, A Patch of Blue) in an unforgettable performance. How should I describe it? She belongs between two pieces of rye bread with Swiss cheese and spicy brown mustard. She\u2019s so hammy in Cleopatra Jones<\/strong>, she puts Porky Pig to shame. If you ask me, it\u2019s one of her finest performances.<\/p>\n

\u00a0ANYWAY, the real star of the movie is Dobson who plays the eponymous character, a special agent highly skilled in martial arts, weaponry and looking fine. In the opening scene, she oversees the burning of a poppy field in Turkey, an operation that incurs the wrath of Mommy (the wrath of Mom, hmmm) furious over losing $30 million worth of product. She retaliates by sending the police to bust a community home for recovering drug addicts run by Cleo\u2019s main squeeze Reuben Masters (Casey, Sharky\u2019s Machine). She returns to the US only to be met by Mommy\u2019s henchmen at the airport, an incompetent bunch she easily outfoxes. Then she meets with her friend on the force, Captain Crawford (Frazer, The Super Cops), to let him know she\u2019s on the case. Look out, Mommy! Your day of reckoning is nigh.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The plot of Cleopatra Jones<\/strong> is fairly standard with the corrupt cops, jive-talking criminals, car chases and shoot-outs. HOWEVER, it\u2019s elevated greatly by Dobson\u2019s presence. Not only is she completely bad ass, she\u2019s strikingly beautiful. She was a model before she got into acting. You can tell by the way she carries herself throughout the movie. She\u2019s an exotic beauty, an African queen if you will, with her Afro, fur jackets, colorful outfits and collection of headdresses, scarves and turbans. Cleo is a perfect blend of fashion, femininity and strength. She\u2019s a lady, but you don\u2019t want to tangle with her. She can kick down doors and kick ass as good as any male action hero. She\u2019s like a female James Bond. She drives around in a silver-and-black Stingray with hidden compartments for a bevy of automatic weapons. This comes in handy when she and Reuben are pinned down by more of Mommy\u2019s inept hitmen in one scene. Like Bond with his charm and sophistication, Cleo uses her beauty and street smarts to get the job done.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Cleopatra Jones<\/strong> also benefits from a groovy supporting cast that also includes Antonio \u201cHuggy Bear\u201d Fargas (Starsky & Hutch) as drug dealer Doodlebug, a master of jive who delivers some of the movie\u2019s funniest lines. Here\u2019s a sample line: \u201cIf Mommy wants trouble, I\u2019m not exactly known as Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farms.\u201d I like Fargas as an actor; he\u2019s great here. Esther Rolle (Good Times) shows up briefly as the mother of two karate expert brothers, Matthew (Popwell, Sudden Impact) and Melvin (Kenyatta, The Young Nurses), who help Cleo locate the corrupt cop who planted drugs on a resident of the community house. Bill McKinney (Every Which Way But Loose, Any Which Way You Can) plays a racist cop suspected of being the one that planted the drugs. The lovely Brenda Sykes (Black Gunn) plays Tiffany, nightclub singer and girlfriend to Doodlebug. Soul Train host Don Cornelius makes a cool cameo after a performance by Tiffany. In the end, however, Cleopatra Jones<\/strong> belongs to foxy Dobson and butch Winters. Their climactic fight in an auto junkyard is a true highlight. In fact, that whole scene is great.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Directed by Jack Starrett (Slaughter), Cleopatra Jones<\/strong> is bolstered by a funky soundtrack that includes Joe Simon (\u201cGet Down, Get Down\u201d) singing the theme song. The action scenes are well orchestrated. They\u2019re exciting without being too over the top. Dobson has some slick moves and uses her height to great advantage. I also love how Winters devours the scenery in every scene she\u2019s in. My only gripe about the movie is how some of the characters, like Reuben, disappear for long stretches. I actually forgot Casey was in it. By the way, he turns in his usual solid performance. Aside from that, Cleopatra Jones<\/strong> is a solid B-level blaxploitation action flick. It\u2019s the kind of movie that\u2019s fun to see with an audience at an urban grindhouse theater. Too bad we can\u2019t go back in time…. yet.\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cleopatra Jones (1973)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Warner Bros.\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 89 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (violence, language, sensuality, drugs)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Jack Starrett\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Max Julien and Sheldon Keller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: J.J. Johnson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: David M. Walsh\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: July 13, 1973 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Tamara Dobson, Bernie Casey, Brenda Sykes, Antonio Fargas, Shelley Winters, Dan Frazer, Bill McKinney, Stafford Morgan, Paul Koslo, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4732,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kick-ass-actioners"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Cleopatra-Jones-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\/3867","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=3867"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4733,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3867\/revisions\/4733"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}