Pam Grier’s first leading role is Coffy, a dedicated nurse who is fed up with the narcotics that have infiltrated the inner city. When her eleven-year-old sister is hospitalized after shooting some contaminated heroin, Coffy hits the streets with a loaded shotgun, determined to stop the drug trade once and for all. —IMDb
Jack Hill grew up around movies – his father was a designer for Disney Studios and Warner Brothers. He went to the University of California to study film, where he was a classmate of Francis Ford Coppola – they worked together on student productions and later both apprenticed with Roger Corman, working on The Terror (1963). While Coppola went on to Oscardom, Jack continued with B-flicks. He didn’t make a lot of films, and while all were low budget they all (except The Jezebels (1975)) made money, and his early ‘blaxploitaton’ films Coffy (1973) and Foxy Brown (1974) were hits. Soon after The Jezebels (1975) he stopped making movies so he and his wife Elke could pursue meditation and he could write novels. Today his films are hailed as cult classics, thanks primarily to Quentin Tarantino, who saw Hill’s work as it made its way to video. With retrospectives and a re-release of The Jezebels (1975), his career seems to be reviving. —IMDb… read more
While it suffers at times from sluggish pacing, this is a hell of an exploitation film with an aching melancholy and anger that places it above other kitschy blaxploitations of its kind. Pam Grier kicks ass.
Jack Hill was one of the kings of quality exploitation movies, and COFFY is one of his crowning achievements, not only for him, but for Pam Grier as well. She points a sawed-off at a pusherman’s head… read review
