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Nearly forty years after the advent of Blaxploitation, it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish the parodies (CLEOPATRA SCHWARTZ, BLACK DYNAMITE) that followed from the genuine articles (CLEOPATRA JONES, BLACK SHAMPOO) that broke out of the Hollywood studio system in the 1970s to appeal an African-American movie-going demographic accustomed to searching high and wide for racial representation on the big screen. The unparalleled success enjoyed by United Artists with Ossie Davis’ COTTON COMES TO HARLEM (1970) and by MGM with Gordon Parks’ SHAFT (1971) led to a flood of films that made household names out of former character actors (Yaphet Kotto, William Marshall), stage players (Thalmus Rasulala, Paula Kelly), professional athletes (Jim Brown, Fred Williamson), fashion models (Richard Roundtree, Tamara Dobson), standup comedians (Richard Pryor, Rudy Rae Moore), and even the occasional receptionist (Pam Grier, Gloria Hendry). Yet even when fronted by predominantly all-black casts, Blaxploitation films (as they were later dubbed, not always flatteringly) were more often than not driven by white executives and overseen by white directors-for-hire. Such was the case for the Warner Bros. hit CLEOPATRA JONES (1973), a marriage of Blaxploitation elements with the outr tropes of the spy subgenre (particularized by the popular James Bond franchise, whose lead had changed from Sean Connery to Roger Moore for the Blaxploitation-flavored LIVE AND LET DIE), made by a creative team that was almost entirely Caucasian.
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An attempt to craft a female Blaxploitation heroine on par with the indefatigably macho likes of Richard Roundtree’s SHAFT, Jim Brown’s SLAUGHTER (1972), and Fred Williamson’s HAMMER (1972), CLEOPATRA JONES was the brainchild of actor Max Julien. An actor of slight build but bottomless charisma, Julien had parlayed supporting roles as The Black Guy in such Hollywood product as PSYCH-OUT (1968) and GETTING STRAIGHT (1970) into stardom as an upwardly mobile Oakland pimp in THE MACK (1973), a Cinerama release that was at the time the most profitable Blaxploitation film ever made. Julien had conceived of CLEOPATRA JONES as a vehicle for his then-girlfriend, Vonetta McGee, who had already enjoyed prominent roles in the revisionist Italian western THE GRAND SILENCE (1968), BLACULA (1972), and MGM’s MELINDA (1972). With his script sale to Warners, however, Julien lost casting approval but helped select Tamara Dobson, a 6’2″ Vogue model who had played minor roles in the COTTON COMES TO HARLEM sequel COME BACK, CHARLESTON BLUE (1972) and FUZZ (1972).
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Hired to punch up the dialogue was TV veteran Sheldon Keller, whose experience as a staff writer for THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW and M*A*S*H helped nudge CLEOPATRA JONES closer to knowing self-parody. With the backing of a major studio, the film easily outpaced in terms of production value the American International Picture movies starring Pam Grier, with Dobson adding a touch of class to the proceedings by refusing to perform nude. Cast as the film’s antagonist was two-time Academy Award-winner Shelley Winters (at the time, an Oscar nominee for her role in THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE), who brings to the role of “Mommy,” a Sapphic drug czarina with an all-boy crew, the same brass she flashed as Ma Barker in AIP’s BLOODY MAMA (1970). As writer Michael Barrett noted last year, Winters’ career falls into three distinct categories: “pathetic clinger who must be killed (A DOUBLE LIFE, THE GREAT GATSBY, A PLACE IN THE SUN)… middle-aged matron who must be killed (NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, LOLITA)… and shrieking old harridan who must be killed. She seemed to accept every role, no matter the budget, and she never phoned it in.” Winters doesn’t disappoint expectations in CLEOPATRA JONES but her outsized performance does make you wish she had been given an exploitation vehicle of her own; instead, she got TENTACLES (1977).
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The considerable box office receipts from CLEOPATRA JONES demanded a sequel, though by the time CLEOPATRA JONES AND THE CASINO OF GOLD (1975) hit the big screens the Blaxploitation vogue was fading.
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Warners again entrusted the property to a white director, former stuntman Chuck Bail, while producer William Tennant handled scripting duties (Max Julien having refused to participate). Warners did not vary the template of the original film too dramatically; whereas undercover CIA agent Cleopatra Jones had gone up against white lady drug czar Shelley Winters in the original film, CLEOPATRA JONES AND THE CASINO OF GOLD pits her against white lady drug czar Stella Stevens, albeit with a location shift from Hollywood to Hong Kong and Macau for an added flavor of travel board exotica. (The film’s most perverse element is the casting of Norman Fell as the closest thing there is to a leading man.) As with CLEOPATRA JONES, the script is an odd comingling of black empowerment, martial arts, and homophobia with the result being a gold lam bouillabaisse that climaxes with a to-the-death catfight between Dobson and Stevens that goes hard on the casino decor, while the score by Dominic Frontiere does its level best to remind viewers of Isaac Hayes’ Academy Award-winning “Theme from Shaft.” Reviews from the major critics were kinder than might have been anticipated, with guarded praise from the persnickety likes of Vincent Canby at The New York Times and The Chicago Sun Times‘ Roger Ebert, who averred “I don’t want to make this all sound too lurid… but, on the other hand, it’s pretty lurid,
really.”
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CLEOPATRA JONES AND THE CASINO OF GOLD underperformed at the box office, marking the tail of the comet that was Blaxploitation. In the ensuing years, Dobson struggled to find work of the caliber of her Cleopatra Jones films and, after scattershot appearances on television, capped her feature film career in the women-in-prison cult classic CHAINED HEAT (1983), which reunited her with Stella Stevens. Dobson retired from show business in 1984, after reteaming with Stevens yet again in the ABC-TV movie AMAZONS, in which the costars played members of a clandestine band of latter day she-warriors who have infiltrated the inner circles of the Washington, D.C. political scene to further their misandrist agenda. Dobson lived in New York City through most of the rest of her life (along with tennis pro Arthur Ashe, she helped break the color barrier of the exclusive midtown Carnegie House condominiums, where she was a longtime resident) until the diagnosis of multiple sclerosis necessitated a return to the care of her family in her native Baltimore. Dobson passed away at the age of 59 on October 2, 2006. Though Tamara Dobson was denied anything like a comeback with the resurgence of interest in Blaxploitation, her trademark character was paid homage in the spy spoof AUSTIN POWERS IN GOLDMEMBER (2002), in which Beyonce Knowles appeared as deep cover FBI agent Foxxy Cleopatra.
