Karate-chopping '70s heroine Cleopatra Jones trailblazed the modern action-comedy

In other words, Cleopatra Jones is fun in a way too few female-led action movies are allowed to be. You could probably draw a straight line between this movie and the Charlie’s Angels TV show that debuted three years later. While there can be something powerful about using the action genre to unpack the trauma and abuse that real-life women face, sometimes you just want to watch kickass ladies enjoy themselves like male action heroes so often get to do. If the thrill of Coffy is that it feels like its heroine could genuinely die at any moment, the thrill of Cleopatra Jones is that you know Cleo will always end up on top. As she puts it, “My jurisdiction extends from Ankara, Turkey to Watts Tower, baby.”

What makes Cleopatra Jones special, however, is that it’s not just pure escapism. As with a lot of Blaxploitation films of the era, the story centers on the way drug lords are ravaging a Black neighborhood with heroin while racist, corrupt cops abuse an already struggling community. There are genre staples here like the campy lesbian villain “Mommy” (two-time Oscar winner Shelley Winters doing the absolute most) and the one “good cop” (Dan Frazer) for balance. But the elevating touch is how much Cleopatra Jones cares about depicting the sprawling tapestry of Cleo’s L.A. hometown. This is a film in which every single one- and two-scene character pops, which, more than anything, is what makes Cleo’s fight for her community feel like more than just a talking point. 

Take the scene where she stops by a diner run by a middle-aged woman named Mrs. Johnson (Esther Rolle). Plotwise, it’s a way to introduce Mrs. Johnson’s two karate-expert sons so they can serve as Cleo’s backup. But Julien and Keller’s script makes time for a wonderfully warm, lived-in moment where Cleo and Mrs. Johnson greet each other like old friends and gossip about her cool boots and joke about how Mrs. Johnson is too old to remember what young studs even want from women. Though the character only appears in that one sequence, the fantastic chemistry between Dobson and Rolle makes Cleo feel like a prodigal daughter returning home, not just a secret agent dropping by to save the day. 

The same goes for a scene where Cleo pays some precocious neighborhood kids to watch her car when she parks on a sketchy street. Storywise, the beat doesn’t technically need to be there, but it adds so much texture to the film and to Cleo’s glamorous but caring characterization. She’s both of this world and not. That’s also true of a subplot involving minor drug lord “Doodlebug” Simpkins (Antonio Fargas, pre-Huggy Bear), who becomes a compellingly tragic antihero in his attempt to claim the same kind of power as his white boss. If anything, Cleopatra Jones is almost too full of supporting characters and subplots, which take a little effort to track at times. Yet that also makes it the kind of film that rewards multiple viewings, which certainly isn’t true of all exploitation cinema.

Indeed, the first time I watched Cleopatra Jones, I felt a twinge of uncertainty during the film’s junkyard-set climax, where Cleo is set to die in a car crusher until her do-gooder activist boyfriend (Bernie Casey) swoops in to save her. My gut impulse was that she should be saving herself, not getting rescued. But on second thought, I realized the assist is actually much more in keeping with the film’s community-minded ethos. When Cleo first returns home, a member of her boyfriend’s anti-drug charity accuses her of abandoning her neighborhood while it’s struggling. By the end, however, Cleo’s got an army of local supporters ready to help her take down Mommy. The fact that she’s not a hero who insists on working alone is part of her strength. Dobson herself spoke about how she didn’t see Cleopatra as a “women’s lib” creation because she’s first and foremost in solidarity with the entire Black community.

Again, it’s a pointed juxtaposition to Coffy and Foxy Brown, which are much more about solo vigilantes forced to solve problems no one else will. One can dream of an alternate version of Hollywood history where these kinds of emotionally diverse female action heroines got to keep growing and expanding over the years, just as long-running foils like Captain America and Tony Stark have been allowed to do. Unfortunately, by the time a Cleopatra Jones sequel arrived in 1975, the Blaxploitation trend was already fizzling. (Grier starred in her last action roles that year too.) Where the original Cleopatra Jones was a critical and commercial hit, the Hong Kong-set, Shaw Brothers-produced sequel Cleopatra Jones And The Casino Of Gold struck out at the box office. Like Grier, Dobson continued to work in a handful of supporting roles but struggled to find leads, even though she’d headlined a moneymaking vehicle on the crest of a zeitgeist. Her last credited acting role was a 1984 TV movie, and she later died of complications from multiple sclerosis in 2000 at age 59. 

It’s bittersweet to read Dobson’s 1973 profile in The New York Times, where she rejects the Blaxploitation label but defends the genre by noting, “Some black people think the only movies you should be making are Sounders, but who in the world is making 10,000 Sounders? We’re all different. … What’s good about films like this is that black people are experimenting, we’re learning about films and filmmaking. There are now black directors and writers and script girls, and even one black cameraman. These are areas where we haven’t been before. People who put down the black adventure films are mistaken. These films are giving black people experience in making films. It takes time to cultivate certain techniques.”

That progress came slower and much more unevenly than it seemed like it might at the height of the Blaxploitation era. Still, Cleopatra Jones‘ modern-feeling tone and somewhat lighter content make it a great entry point for the genre—particularly for younger viewers weaned on today’s franchise fare. Part of the fun of the film is that it’s so firmly, deliciously of its funky 1970s eras. But that doesn’t stop it from feeling unexpectedly timeless.

Next time: As Baby Yoda kicks off a new phase of big-screen Star Wars, we unpack the legacy of Rey.