Foxy Brown

COFFY was a massive hit, so AIP quickly signed writer/director Jack Hill (SPIDER BABY) and star Pam Grier (SCREAM BLACULA SCREAM) to make a quasi-sequel. An excellent showcase for Grier’s talents, FOXY BROWN allows her to show off a sensitive side, primarily in scenes with Antonio Fargas (CLEOPATRA JONES) as her turncoat brother, as well as be strong and kick ass.

The erudite Hill may not have preferred working in exploitation, but he made this type of low-budget action movie as well as just about any director in the 1970s. He certainly deserves credit for developing Grier’s sassy screen persona (the two worked together four times, including THE BIG DOLL HOUSE and THE BIG BIRD CAGE in the Philippines).

Kicking off with opening titles sending up the Bond movies, with a leather-clad, cleavage-baring Grier bumping and grinding along with Willie Hutch’s theme song, FOXY BROWN proves to be a slicker, sleazier picture than COFFY. Grier’s Foxy Brown is a tough, sexy, aggressive, independent, and intelligent woman set on revenge after kinky druglords, played by Peter Brown (RAPE SQUAD) and Kathryn Loder (the warden in THE BIG DOLL HOUSE), murder her government agent boyfriend (BATTLESTAR GALACTICA’s Terry Carter).

Highlights include a guy getting sliced up by an airplane propeller, Foxy and Juanita Brown (CAGED HEAT) smashing up a lesbian bar (“I got a black belt in bar stools!”), Foxy—while undercover as a prostitute—humiliating a crooked old white judge (Harry Holcombe), Sid Haig’s memorable cameo as a womanizing “airplane driver,” and the “pickle-jar” denouement, a typical example of Hill’s black humor. Hill even provides an extraneous fight scene just to give Bob Minor and his team of black stuntmen a chance to show off.

Loder, a New York stage actress who appeared in only three films, is terrible, but her strange acting style somehow suits Hill’s brash tone. Brown, formerly a regular with William Smith and Neville Brand on LAREDO, bounced between television guest heavies and exploitation films during the 1970s. Grier starred in more AIP movies before deservedly moving into the mainstream, including a guest shot on THE LOVE BOAT. Motown released Hutch’s score as a soundtrack album.