SILVER

Dubbed "the Howard Hawks of exploitation filmmaking" by Quentin Tarantino, filmmaker Jack Hill discovered a young Pam Grier and put her in his women-in-prison flicks THE BIG DOLL HOUSE and THE BIG BIRD CAGE before casting her in the iconic Blaxploitation film COFFY. By day, Coffy (Grier) is a dedicated nurse. But by night, she takes to the streets in search of vigilante justice, getting revenge on the crooks who got her sister hooked on drugs. Posing as a high-priced call girl, she works her way through the Los Angeles underworld, uncovering a dark web of corruption and leaving a trail of bodies in her vengeful wake. COFFY's narrative exposes and upends racist and sexist power dynamics, with Hill's raw, brutal style turning Grier into a '70s icon and Hollywood's first female action star. DIR/SCR Jack Hill; PROD Robert A. Papazian. U.S., 1973, color, 91 min. RATED R

AFI Member passes accepted.