In 1844, Alexandre Dumas wrote what is my favorite book in the world: The Three Musketeers. It drew inspiration from the real Charles de Batz-Castelmore d'Artagnan, a captain of the Musketeer Guards of Louis the XIV. Dumas embellished his story, added three friends, a few romances, a lot of swordplay, and loads of political intrigue. The novel is set during the time of Louis XIII, when France was largely controlled by his minister, Cardinal Richelieu. d'Artagnan and his comrades help block the schemes of the Cardinal to disgrace the Queen and deal with one of his assassins, who has a personal connection to one of them. Like his other work, it was first serialized, which leads to a lot of side stories that get excised from some versions of the novel (especially juvenile ones). For instance, there are stories of each Musketeer and their servants and stories about how they obtain their equipment for the impending siege of La Rochelle, which takes up the latter half of the book. These are usually dumped in favor of the adventure to reclaim the Queen's diamond studs, given as a gift to her lover, the Duke of Buckingham, an an attempt by the Cardinal to disgrace her and further manipulate the King. The other plot deals with Milady de Winter's attempts to gain revenge, for her humiliation at the hands of d'Artagnan, which provides the darkest elements of the story.

The basic story has young d'Artagnan, a Gascon from the rural provinces of France, who father served King Henry in previous wars. He sets his son on the road to Paris to seek his fortune, with a letter of introduction to M. Treville, who commands the King's Musketeers, and his grandfather's sword, and a rather preposterous horse. Along the way, the hotheaded country boy finds himself assaulted by Rochefort, an agent of Cardinal Richelieu and the man who will be a long rival. d"artagnan makes it to Paris and M Treville and proceeds to insult three different Musketeers: he barrels into a wounded Athos, while chasing after Rochefort, unwittingly reveals a falsehood that wounds Porthos' vanity, and stumbles across an exchange between Aramis and a lover. All three challenge him to duels, which he accepts. the first is with Athos, whose seconds turn out to be the other two. before the duel can begin, the Cardinal's guards turn up to arrest them for dueling, leading to a fight which has d'Artagnan join the Musketeers and earn their trust and friendship. From there, d'Artagnan gains a position in the Guards, as he has not distinguished himself enough for the Musketeers. His landlord's wife is the Queen's dressmaker and confidant and d'Artagnan is in love with her. he stumbles upon her intrigues on behalf of the Queen to meet her lover, the English Prime Minister, the Duke of Buckingham. The Queen makes a present of some diamond studs. Later, the Cardinal is informed by his spies and hatches a plot to disgrace the Queen by manipulating the King into giving a grand ball, where he asks that the Queen wear the studs. Through Constance, the dressmaker, she implores d'Artagnan and his friends toregain the studs. The Cardinal sends his agent, Milady de Winter, to steal two studs, which she accomplishes. Buckingham has new ones made and d"Artagnan races to return them to Paris, in time. d"Artagnan earns the Queen's favor and the Cardinal's wrath. Milady seeks revenge and hatches a plot to murder d"Artagnan and the Musketeers. d'Artagnan learns that Athos, the drunkard, was once a nobleman, the Comte de la Fere, whose wife was branded with the fleur di lis of a harlot and was a murderess, disgracing him. He tried to kill her and then joined the Musketeers, under his assumed name. it turns out that Milady is his former wife. The Musketeers defeat her scheme and pass judgement on her and she is executed for her crimes. d'Artagnan has a warrant she carried, giving carte blanche to carry out any act. he uses it to defeat the Cardinal when he is arrested. the Cardinal is impressed and gives him a lieutenant's commission in the Musketeers.

The novel is filled with great characters, romance, thrills, adventure, sword duels, intrigue, comedy and tragedy. Everything you could want in a great book. So, not suprisingly, it was adapted for the stage and screen.

The first film version was a French silent film, in 1903. Another 5 were done in both France and Hollywood, including a two-parter by Thomas Edison's studio. Douglas Fairbanks starred in one in 1921...



The French did the first talkie, which was soon followed by a rather odd American version: a Mascot serial, with John Wayne, where the Musketeers are Foreign Legionnaires.



Wayne had been in a flop and ended up doing Poverty Row stuff, including this and 2 other serials and a bunch of B-westerns.

The first actual English talking version was in 1935, from director Rowland V Lee, who directed the Count of Monte Cristo. That film featured Walter Abel as d'Artagnan and Paul Lukas (later the French scientist in Disney's 20,000 Leagues) as Athos.



1939 would bring one of the most notorious entries to the film canon: Don Ameche and the Ritz Brothers.



This one was played strictly for laughs (the novel has quite a bit of humor, though it is more character-driven). The Ritz Brothers play cowards, with a lot of slapstick nonsense. It was later used in leave it to Beaver, where Beav fogoes reading the book and watches the movie for a book report. The film is pretty bad and not recommended, unless you want to watch a trio of guys who wish they were the Marx Brothers.

There are more foreign versions; but, in 1948, America finally got a serious version, from MGM



This is a lavish Technicolor spectacle, starring Gene Kelly as d'Artagnan, Lana Turner as Milady, June Allyson as Constance, Van Heflin as Athos, Gig Young as Porthos, Robert Coote as Aramis and Vincent Price as Richelieu. Personally, I thought Kelly was badly miscast; but, his dancer background really adds a lot of zest to the action scenes and they really play up the swashbuckling. the problem is his acting wasn't really up to it, in my opinion. Lana Turner is fantastic as Milady; one of her best roles. Price is delightfully evil, though less fun than his later villains. The film covers the diamond stud adventure and Milady's attempt at revenge, which makes the film feel rather long. It's a lot to get through and you are ready for the ending before it comes. it also ends the film on a down note, though so did Dumas. In a little nod to the past, Gene Kelly watches himself in this film, in Singin' in the Rain.

The fim was a box office hit; but, it also cost $4 million to make, which was a high cost, for the period. Kelly hoped it would launch him into more serious pictures, though it never really did. probably his best serious role was in Inherit the Wind, as a cynical news reporter, covering the trial.

After this one, Hollywood stayed away from Athos, Porthos, Aramis and d'Artagnan, as tastes changed. France would produce more Musketeers films and so would Mexico. In the US, we did get a sort of companion to the MGM film, via their cartoon performers, Tom and Jerry, with the Two Mousketeers...



Touche, monsieur pussycat! I use that line with my cat, all the time. There are 4 Mouseketeer cartoons: The Two Mouseketeers, Touche, Pussycat; Tom and Cherie, and Royal Cat Nap.

In 1969, we got a tv film, with Kenneth Welsh, which featured a young actor as John Felton, the historical murderer of Buckingham. His name was Christopher Walken.

Just prior to that, in 1968, hanna-Barbera produced a cartoon series of The Three Musketeers, as part of the Banana Splits Adventure Hour. The character designs were from the master, Alex Toth...



These were new adventures, with d'Artagnan and the Musketeers fighting enemies of Louis XIV, aided by Constance Bonacieux and her nephew Tooly. There were 18 cartoons, with some excellent fencing, which Toth storyboarded.



In 1973, H-B's Australian studio produced a full adaptation of the novel for the Famous Classic Tales series, broadcast over holidays. It reused the Toth models, but mostly sticks to Dumas.

Another Australian studio, Burbank films, would also produce a version of the Three Musketeers, in the 80s.

Now, we come to what I consider to be the greatest adaptation of the story: the 1973 production from the Salkind family...



The films stars Michael York as d'Artagnan, Oliver Reed as Athos, Frank Finlay as Porthos, Richard Chamberlain as Aramis, Raquel Welch as Constance Bonacieux, Spike Milligan as M Bonacieux, Christopher Lee as Rochefort, Faye Dunaway as Milady, Jean-Pierre Cassel (father of Vincent Cassel) as Louis XIII, Geraldine Chaplin as Anne of Austria, Simon Ward (father of Sophie Ward) as Buckingham, Roy Kinnear as Planche, and Charlton Heston as Cardinal Richelieu. Richard Lester, who directed the Beatles, directed the film, adding comedic touches throughout, but never losing sight of the drama and adventure. It was the first version to capture both the adventure, romance and comedy of the novel, but still hold onto the intrigue and darkness. it was later disparaged by randall Wallace, in his commentary for his man in th Iron mask, saying they made a joke of it. Read the damn book, fool; it's filled with humor (he sure didn't read The Man in the Iron Mask).

The dueling is not the pretty, gentlemanly style seen in the Olympics or college gymnasiums, let alone motion pictures. these were realistic brawls, with the fighters using anything at hand, besides their rapier. Fighters use a main gauche, a sort of mixture of a dagger and a short sword, carried in the left hand to ward off blows from that side, while using the rapier with the right. Oliver Reed fights like his life depends on it and we see cloaks used to snare blades, clubs and rocks used to blindside. There is even a fight in a laundry, with wet wash used as weapons!

York is earnest and brave, if a bit stupid. Athos is a drunkard (hence Reed, who was deep in his drinking, but hadn't quite fallen out of favor because of it). He is melancholy and cynical, yet he is the truest mentor to young d'Artagnan. Finlay's Porthos is great character fun, with his pompous bluster, as Finlay portrays him as a sort of English upper Middle Class blowhard, who happened to be born in France. he gets to do more character work as he has a smaller, secondary role, as an Irish jeweler and artificer who makes the two new studs for Buckingham and d'Artagnan, to restore the full 12 to Queen Anne.

On the villain side, Heston is quite cultured and layered as Richilieu, a man with schemes within schemes, who uses setbacks as yet another move in a longer game. Faye Dunaway is icy cold as the murderous Milady, far deadlier than Christopher Lee's Rochefort, who seems eternally bemused and annoyed at events.

The film production shot the entirety of the book 9well, the main plots) as one film, intending it to be a roadshow picture, with an intermission. however, they didn't have everything ready and decided to split it into two films, the first, title The Three Musketeers: the Queen's Diamonds. Then, the lawsuits started flying.

Raquel Welch brought suit against the Salkinds for creating two pictures when they only contracted the actors for one. Soon, other cast members joined in. The Salkinds ended up having to pay the actors for two films and it became standard for movie contracts to include what is known as the "Salkind Clause," which requires payment for reusing footage or for using cut footage in another film. That second film would be titled The Four Musketeers: Milady's Revenge



The film sees Milady seek revenge for her humiliation and the reveal of her past with Athos. There is a terrific scene where the Musketeers, during the siege of La Rochelle, have breakfast in hotly contested battlements, while they discuss Milady's actions. Shots ring out while they eat and drink and plot, then a bit of cricket, involving bombs, loaves of bread and some champagne. This takes a very dark turn towards the end, as past is revealed and characters meet their end. d"artagnan fights a climactic duel with Rochefort which is anything but pretty.

The films are a joy. lester add subtle touches as you get background dialogue gags, such as when Faye Dunaway gets out of a litter and you hear one of the bearers mutter, "She's put on a bit of weight!" In another scene, a wagon of barrels breaks free and dumps its cargo, just missing a man carrying a basket filled with eggs, who sidesteps the danger, only to trip on his own feet and crush the eggs. A spy of the Cardinal reads him a transcript of a conversation between the Queen and Constance, where the Queen repeatedly insults the Cardinal, who interrupts the spy as he reads the dialogue, with repeated emphasis on the insults. Spike Milligan is a hoot throughout the first film (he's absent from the second part), fumbling with a pistol when Rochefort breaks into his apartments and arrests him, while Constance escapes, with d'Artagnan's aid. Christopher Lee asked where his performance came from and Milligan remarked from his father, in Burma, when their house was attacked. he fumbled with a gun and nearly shot himself!

This is probably the most faithful version, with something for everyone. The Musketeers even carry and use muskets! No other version includes that! Lester and most of the cast would be reunited, in the late 80s, to do a reunion, where they adapted the Musketeer sequel novel, The Twenty Years After. That novel finds the Musketeers retired, apart from d"artagnan, who falls into the plot of Cardinal mazarin, while stalked by a legacy of Milady. It crosses to England, for the execution of King Charles II. It also introduces Athos' son, Raoul.

The film was called The return of the Musketeers, with the musketeers and Christopher Lee all returning, and Jean-Pierre Cassel playing Cyrano de Bergerac. Geraldine Chaplin was back as Queen Anne, with Philippe Noiret as Cardinal Mazarin, the lover of the Queen. Louis XIV is a boy, in this. Kim Cattrall is the daughter of Rochefort and Milady and C Thomas Howell is Raoul. The film is a bit uneven, at the start, but gets better as it goes. the comedy tends to fall a bit flat, though; but, there is plenty of intrigue, as Athos and Aramis are secretly involved in the frondist Revolt, while Porthos aids d'Artagnan, who acts for Mazarin.



Sadly, the film was marred by tragedy. During shooting, actor Roy Kinnear, returning as d'Artagnan's servant Planche, was thrown from a horse and broke his pelvis. he died from internal bleeding at a hospital. The Spanish crew misunderstood orders and wet the coblestones of a street, which caused Kinnear's horse to slip. he was not an accomplished rider and had 15 minutes of practice before the take. Kinnear was a terrific actor, who appeared in Lester's Beatle films, a couple of episodes of the Avengers and other British tv series, the dramatic film The Hill, with Sean Connery and Ossie Davis, and is probably best knwon as playing Mister Salt, father of spoiled brat Veruca, in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

Kinnear's death casts a pall across the production and you can sense it in some scenes, shot after the accident.

The novel has only been adapted twice: this film, and a 1992 Russian musical film.

Jump ahead to 1993 and we get the next crime against Dumas, proving that no one in Hollywood reads books anymore (if they ever did). That is Walt Disney production of the novel, with Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland, Oliver Platt, Chris O'Donnell and Tim Curry.



At the time this came out, I jokingly referred to it as Young Swords, since much of the cast had been involved in the Young Guns movies, which likely factored into their casting as the most unlikely Musketeers since the Ritz Brothers. To start with, the only thing from Dumas are the names, and the scenes of d"Artagnan offending the Musketeers and meeting all together, when he goes to face Athos. After that, it is total Hollywood BS. It hasa teenaged Louis the XIII under the control of Richelieu, who then plots to murder him. Porthos has a pirate ship and there is no mention of Aramis intentions to become a priest. Rebecca De Mornay is about the only decent element, as Milady, hough her schemes are vastly altered, though not her end. Thank Dumas there wasn't a sequel.

in 2001, we got someone's probably drug-induced idea for a remake as a Hong Kong action film, with Tim Roth, as The Musketeer. This had less Dumas than the Disney version.



Just what Dumas always needed: wire stunts.

2011 gave us Paul WS Anderson's travesty, in 3D



Yes, there is an airship in this POS. That whirring sound is Alexandre Dumas spinning in his grave.

Thankfully, they have left well enough alone, since then.

In the meantime, the BBC, with BBC America, developed the tv show The Musketeers (probably to stop Americans from asking why they are called the three musketeers when there are 4 of them?).  Peter Capaldi was cast as Richilieu, for the first series.  The series was a bit shaky at first; but, by the third episode had gained praise.  it was shot in the Czech republic, to take advantage of some more historical buildings that were unavailable in modern France.  Unfortunately, Capaldi got the role of Doctor Who and had to bow out of the second series and was replaced by Mark Warren, as Rochefort, as the lead villain.

There are a couple of Musketeer offshoots to discuss before we end.  The first is a 1952 RKO picture, title At Sword's Point (aka The Sons of the Three Musketeers.  The film stars Cornell Wilde as the son of d'Artagnan, Dan O'Herlihy as the son of Aramis (neat trick as he takes holy orders and is a bishop, in the later Musketeer novels), Alan Hale Jr as Porthos (his father played Porthos in The Man in the Iron Mask and he would also play Porthos in The 5th Musketeer, based on TMITIM), and Maureen O'Hara as the daughter of Athos, who disguises herself (unconvincingly) as a boy.



It's not quite a classic; but, it is a pretty decent film, though its history is pretty bad.  O'Hara gets to do a bit of fencing and has a good lunge, though she isn't going to challenge Basil Rathbone.  This one turns up on TCM, occasionally, and got a release from the Warner Archive.

The other is somewhat similar in premise, if not execution:  The Daughter of d'Artagnan aka Revenge of the Musketeers, from directer Bertrand Tavernier.  Sophie Marceau is Eloise, the daughter of d'Artagnan, played by Philippe Noiret.  She is in a convent when an escaped slave takes refuge there.  Eloise gets herself and her father (and friends) embroiled in a conspiracy against the king.  It is a fine film and Marceau is great as the rather wild Eloise.



Next time, we look at the end of the Musketeers, with the story of The Man in the Iron Mask.   

I remember being surprised the first time I read The Three Musketeers at how funny it was, and also how much fun in general. Definitely didn't read like a "classic" in the sense I'd come to expect. I liked Twenty Years After just as much, and it's too bad it's overshadowed by the more famous works on either side. The sequence where the Musketeers try and (as history demands) fail to save Charles I from execution was just fantastic.

When I read the third novel, The Vicomte de Bragelonne, it was easy to see why it's usually cut down so heavily; that thing is LONG (the original newspaper serialization ran more than three years), and the first two-thirds is mostly court intrigue during the early part of Louis XIV's reign. What surprised me when I read the original is that the plot to replace Louis with his brother fails, where I think in every movie version it succeeds. The Marvel Illustrated adaptation from several years ago is more faithful.

It's a shame the Di Caprio version wasn't very good. I'm not familiar with Gabriel Byrne, but on paper the casting of Malkovich, Depardieu, and Irons as the other three Musketeers is perfection.

Haven't yet read The Corsican Brothers, but I have listened to a radio serialization from the 1930s that was decent.

My bucket list Dumas read is his huge Marie Antoinette series, which I have complete in unabridged versions but haven't yet attempted. Had I known in advance that I was about to be spending (at least) a couple weeks at home, I would have dug them out of storage and brought them here.

For me, it is hard eharing Byrne's Dublin brogue, mixed with Irons' received pronunciation, Depardieu's heavy French accent (speaking English) and Malkovich's Midwestern accent. It's such a weird mix.  By contrast, the Lester films cast all English actos as the Musketeers, except Chamberlain, who studied theater in England and could do received pronunciation.

Byrne is a good actor who has done some excellent films. This wasn't one of them. Di Caprio has done better work since this (and had a couple of good ones, before Titanic). I like Malkovich but he is just wrong for a Musketeer story. He was better used in Luc Besson's The Messenger, where he is the new French king.

I loved Oliver Reed's Athos, as he brings a lot to the performance and it was one of his last great roles, for years. He went from that to Condorman and worse (Gor), before getting some last minute glory, in Gladiator. Such talent wasted on alcohol. But, no, Athos doesn't translate well in Hollywood. In most of the other Musketeer films, Athos is just "one of the guys," and they skip over the Comte de la ferre. The MGM version, with Gene Kelly, made him a fairly strong character.

I read The Three Musketeers, abridged, in junior high (after having watched the Banana Splits Show cartoons, as a small child) but read it unabridged, as an adult. Love it. It's my favorite classic work, with Ivanhoe a close second. Picked up The Twenty Years After, after I left the military and read it. Very good, with a similar flavor. Return of the Musketeers messes with the plot; but, gets the basic structure right, while trying to recapture the past.

You have to look long and hard to find the entire Vicomte de Bragalonne. When I worked for Barnes & Noble, we had it as three parts, from Penguin and/or Oxford, with a mass market paperback edition of just The Man in the Iron Mask, from Signet. Our classics line only had The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers, though we had an omnibus, for a time, that had Count, Musketeers and Man in the Iron Mask.

I've wanted to read the Balsamo stuff, as Dumas was one of the few to write about the con artist. Some of that work gets touched upon in a few stories in the Tales of the Shadowmen anthologies, from Black Coat Books, which have modern writers doing stories with characters from French pulp literature (and classic lit and tv & film), mostly in relation to Josephine Balsamo, from the Arsene Lupin stories.

I will be hitting some movies with some of the characters featured in those anthologies, like Fantomas, Judex and Lupin.

It always pissed me off as a kid that the newspaper would be full of ads for these awesome-looking action and horror films, but they were always rated R, so I couldn't see them.

Not quite up to Rufus Carter in my reviews, though what I see doesn't really bring Jim Kelly to mind. If I were to pick a model, I'd say he looks more like Donnie Williams...





Williams was in a lot of Blaxploitation and martial arts films, as a stuntman and bit player. He and Steve Muhammad were the driving forces of the Black Karate Federation and were partial inspirations for the character Tommie Davidson did on In Living Color.

You can usually spot Donnie Williams because he would wear a knit cap in Africa's colors, and with the way he would usually snap his head when he was selling the punches of the hero. Steve Muhammad was balding, but had his afro grown out at the sides and is hard to mistake in these films...



This is Steve Muhammad instructing the kempo class, when Jim Kelly says goodbye...



That's the back of Donnie Williams head, in his trademark cap. In the film, when Williams comes in, Muhammad has Williams take over to say his goodbyes.

Forgot to mention Kelly's fight style in the films. He was known for his roundhouse kicks and it looked great on screen, with his long legs just whipping out and slapping the hoods across the face. The Black Belt Jones trailer shows him delivering a series of them, while everyone stands there, waiting to get hit.

Even Midnight, Shang Chi's brother, never really had that Jim Kelly/Williams/Black Belt Jones vibe.

So, from martial arts hero to street hero.



Luke Cage really needed a lion!

Black Samson tells the story of Samson, who runs a local nightclub and acts as the unofficial protector of his neighborhood, keeping crime and drugs off his streets. Mobsters want the land that the club and surrounding buildings sit on and try to break down Samson, to get to everyone. Samson fights them, pretty much alone; but, the neighborhood stands with him when the mob tries to move in, in force.

Rockne Tarkington stars as the hero. Tarkington was a stage-trained actor from Kansas, who appeared frequently on television, in the 60s, in such shows as The Man From UNCLE, Bewitched, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Mission Impossible and Tarzan (with Ron Ely). In fact, he had a recurring role on Tarzan, as Tao. He was the first African-American actor to be credited on the Andy Griffith Show and had a speaking part. he may be better known to some here as Elihu Morgan, from the Danger Island segments of the Banana Splits Adventure Hour. Tarkington was a big man and looked the part of a hero (though he usually played villains and henchmen) and was a pretty good actor.

William Smith (Conan's father, in Conan the Barbarian and the Russian SPETSNAZ leader in Red Dawn) is Johnny Nappa, the mob boss, who wants the territory and he plays it with pure, vicious, racist evil. Titos Vandis plays his father, the old mob boss he is trying to impress. You can also see "Judo" Gene LeBell as one of the thugs/stuntmen, who gets tossed around (the smaller guy who Samson tosses over the car hood in the trailer).

This one doesn't play for laughs, though there are humorous moments. It strives more for realism, which is a break from many of the exploitation films. You won't get great one-liners; but, you will get a sincere street hero who is protecting his people. It's pretty much a western, as the lone sheriff tries to fight off the outlaws, with the townspeople coming together at the end for the big showdown. This film earns its ending, as you see everyone depend on Samson, then gain the courage from his example to stand with him against the hoods. They rain rocks and metal and other debris on them from the rooftops, driving them out. he and Johnny have a final fight..



This is very much what Luke Cage was, at his best: a hero of the inner city, who takes no crap from anyone, yet also tries to make life better for the people. despite all the genre trappings, it's a very positive film, though it has to go into dark places for the light to shine.

On the other side, but a little more in tune with the Blaxploitation tropes are two favorites with the always awesome Pam Grier. First up is Coffy...



Pam Grier is Coffy, a nurse whose little sister ends up hooked on heroin. She takes it upon herself to rid the neighborhood of the pushers and predators that plague it with drugs, prostitution and violence. She goes undercover to lure drug dealers into their homes and kills them. She dates a cop who is straight and refuses bribes and intimidation. When he is beaten nearly to death, Coffy goes after the mobsters who did it.

The film was a first for portraying a black woman as the star and hero. It was made because the producers lost the rights to do Cleopatra Jones and rushed out this film to try to beat it to the punch and succeeded, as Coffy is a much better film and Pam Grier a much better actress. She's a bit wooden in some of her dialogue; but, considering the roles open to black actors, it is understandable. That was an issue with most Blaxploitation films as these were the avenues for black actors, beyond bit parts in tv or movies (usually in subservient or villainous roles). Blaxploitation films had black heroes fighting black and white villains (though usually white mobsters and corrupt public figures). Coffy gave them a strong woman who is in charge of her own sexuality and takes care of her own world. As such, Pam Grier became a major icon of both the Civil Rights movement and the Women's Liberation Movement.

The film is filled with cheesy dialogue, plenty of violence (way more than necessary; but, it came with the genre), and some really great action scenes. What's really bizarre to see, in this one is the villain: Allan Arbus. You may know him better as Dr Sydney Freedman, the psychiatrist, on MASH...



Now, picture him as an Italian mobster!



So that's what he got up to, after the war! His henchman is none other than Sid Haig, a regular feature in exploitation films and cop shows, as well as the villain Dragos, in the Saturday morning tv show Jason of Star Command (and the best part of the series!). Haig and Grier worked a lot of movies together, including The Big Doll House, Coffy and Foxy Brown, before they were reunited in Jackie Brown, where Haig had a cameo as a judge.

Coffy got mixed reviews; but, so did most Blaxploitation films. They weren't created for critics; but for black audiences who wanted to see themselves represented, even as fantasy characters, on the screen. The film did well with the target audience and a sequel went into development. However, director Jack Hioll had a falling out with AIP that was only resolved at the last minute. The proposed film went from being called Burn Coffy, Burn, to Foxy Brown...



Death by airplane!

This time, Pam is Foxy Brown, who isn't a nurse; but, she has some kind of unseen regular job. After her boyfriend, a government agent, is gunned down by a drug syndicate, she goes seeking revenge. She infiltrates a "modelling agency," which is a front for a prostitution ring. There, she tries to save a fellow black woman from a life of drugs and johns. However, her relationship to her boyfriend and her brother is exposed and she is taken prisoner and fed heroin to keep her under control. She attempts an escape, gets got again, brutalized and raped. She gets free and gets help from some Black Panthers (as in the political group, not T'Cghalla and Killmonger). They get the male half of the villain side and cut his genitals off! Then, they put them in a jar to show the female villain. After a gun battle, she is captured and gets an "eye-for-an-eye" treatment, facing the same thing she did to other women.

This one is way nastier than Coffy (which was pretty violent), but with a bit more style. Legendary stuntwoman Jeannie Epper(who doubled Lynda Carter on Wonder Woman and did the hill slide in Romancing the Stone, for Kathleen Turner) worked on both films; but has a memorable fight with Grier in a lesbian bar....

(warning, language and bad acting)


Epper got clobbered, for real, by that picture frame, as Grier forgot to take a step forward when she swung it, so that the canvas was coming down on Epper's head. That scene probably employed more stuntwomen than all of the other films of that year, combined!

Foxy's agent boyfriend is played by Col Tigh himself, Terry Carter, while Sid Haig returns for more thuggery and the ultimate Blaxploitation actor, Antonio Vargas, appears as her brother. Kathryn Loder is Miss Katherine Wall, who runs the prostitution front and is a rather nasty piece of work.

Pam Grier would return in one more film that was based on a comic, well, a comic strip: Friday Foster.



Now, let's be clear, up front; this isn't very reflective of the comic strip. It was something more akin to Brenda Starr. However, Friday is still a model-turned-photographer. here, she witnesses an assassination attempt on a wealthy black man and her best friend is murdered, she teams up with PI Colt Hawkins to investigate. Yaphet Kotto is Hawkins and he plays it with his usual relish and skill. Pam gets to glam it up a bit more, though she got some foxy threads for Foxy Brown. Carl Weathers is one of the hoods, Godfrey Cambridge (actor and stand-up comic, who appeared as an FBI agent, in a Dick Van Dyke Show episode), Scatman Crothers, Jim Backus and the Love Boat's Ted Lange can be seen in the film. Lange is a pimp, which may explain why Isaac went to sea! Pam's boss is Julius Harris, who was memorable as Tee Hee, in Live and Let Die (the henchman with the pincer hands) and Eartha Kitt also appears in this.

This film plays a bit more for fun than Coffy or Foxy Brown, though is never pure comedy, either. It does feature characters who are black businessmen, professionals, family and other positive elements, while still mixing in the stereotypes of pimps and hookers.

As Coffy and Foxy Brown, Pam plays a Punisher with a personality and less access to military hardware. She is an urban vigilante out for revenge. As Friday Foster, she is a photographer caught up in a conspiracy. Samson is the protector of his streets, trying to keep them clean and lift up his disadvantaged friends and neighbors. They are not perfect heroes; but, their flaws make them more interesting than the ones that white creators gave us in comic books. Pam Grier would inspire Misty Knight, who gained her best depiction at the hands of Don McGregor, who was one of the few writers at Marvel that wrote ethnic characters as real people and not a Hollywood idea of those characters. Grier had more personality and charisma than Tarkington, which is probably why her films are considered classics, while Black Samson is often left off lists of the great Blaxploitation films. Despite the lion and the club, it is less flamboyant than Shaft or Black Belt Jones;, but, Tarkington presents a noble hero of the people who is one of them. If Black Panther had been done in the 60s, he would have been a great choice for T'Challa.

Next, we look at Pam Grier's rival, Tamara Dobson, in her two outings as Cleopatra Jones, as she goes up against Shelly Winters and Stella Stevens. Plus, we will look at a trio of more positive messages in films from Sydney Poitier and Bill Cosby (I know, I know...). Come back to see Jimmy "JJ" Walker as the world's skinniest boxer and see James Earl Jones, in person, while he was voicing Darth Vader, for the first time.