FRIDAY FOSTER: GREAT GRIER

I’ve been a fan of Pam Grier for some time now. Having had the chance to see more and more of her films given the blu-ray treatment is a joy and a long overdue opportunity for non-fans to be exposed to her career. Those who never knew the early career of this actress until the roles she had later in life should take advantage of the chance to see these films just out from Olive Films.

This time around Grier once again stars as the title character. For once she’s not a nurse or disguised as a prostitute though. Instead as Friday Foster she’s a top magazine photographer on the lookout for the hottest news stories around. At present that involves getting photographs of the wealthiest black man in the country arriving in LA at his own airport hangar. But Friday is not the only one on hand as a group of assassins has also arrived with the intent of killing the same man.

Having captured a picture of the one assassin to escape (played by Carl “Apollo Creed” Weathers), whoever is behind this attack now sets their sites on Friday as well. With the aid of her good friend P.I. Colt Hawkins (Yaphet Kotto) Friday sets out to investigate just who is behind this before they get her first. She also enlists the aid of a romantic interest, Senator David Lee Hart (Paul Benjamin) who is trying to get to the bottom of things as well as he is into Friday’s bed.

Just who is behind the entire attempt to bring down successful black men in the community makes up the mystery that Friday is trying to solve. In her investigation she moves from gay bars and an informant there played by Godfrey Cambridge to a fashion designer played by Eartha Kitt. She’s aided by a black militant group in her neighborhood and discovers that even select members of the black community are involved in a power struggle to run things.

The movie plays like any normal thriller of this kind and it’s sad to think that it is labeled a part of the Blaxploitation genre. Because of the casting involved it qualifies for that but at the same time this is a solid film not unlike movies that were being made by the likes of Julia Roberts a few years down the line. For myself this is an important reason for these films to be rediscovered again, a chance for young viewers to see these movies as simply movies. Granted they should be appreciated for what they were at the time but at the same time the word Blaxploitation shouldn’t be looked down upon as a lesser film. They provided work for a minority that would eventually be recognized in the film industry as much as anywhere else and it was people like Grier who helped move that forward. Seeing these movies give movie fans the chance to appreciate all she did.

Not only that her performance here is I think the best of the three movies that Olive has released (the other two are COFFY and FOXY BROWN). In this film she gets to show a funnier side to her acting as well as more drama rather than just displaying her body and shooting a machine gun at the bad guy. I say again, the saddest thing of all was that she never got the chance to truly show all what an actress she could be earlier in her career. At least in going forward her work paved the way for other actresses of color to be taken seriously.

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