CLEOPATRA JONES (1973)

Answering a question no one asked, CLEOPATRA JONES proves even a 1970s Blaxploitation pic can be too broad, too coarse, too incompetent to be much fun.  Fashion model Tamara Dobson, a statuesque beauty with a handful of acting credits (her special weapon a high-velocity spinning kick . . . and not much more*) is Jones, a Special Government Agent who firebombs poppy fields in the MidEast before coming home to L.A. when her pet anti-drug charity comes under attack.  On the side of villainy, Shelley Winters pulls faces and all the strings in comic bloat mode.  She’s hard to top, even for Tamara, six foot-two, and not an inch of acting ability in any of those 74 inches.  KOJAK fans get to see Telly Savalas's old boss Dan Frazer as Jones’s new boss.  Series tv director Jack Starrett so pleased he gives Frazer, an old White guy, the film’s freeze-frame final shot.  Did anyone involved in this one know how these things are supposed to work?  Somehow they squeezed out a sequel, but otherwise, generally left these things to Pam Grier.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK:  Even the best Blaxploitation pics now require serious period allowances.  (Less for violence than for sexism.)  But with a bio-pic’s historical perspective, Eddie Murphy’s DOLEMITE IS MY NAME/’19 needs no apology.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2020/08/dolemite-is-my-name-2019.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *That high kick descended from stage vaudevillian Joseph Keaton, father of Buster, by way of musical comedy battle-ax Charlotte Greenwood.