Cleopatra Jones
Cleopatra Jones is a 1973 film from the USA, directed by Jack Starrett, running 89 minutes. reelscum files it under blaxploitation.
- Year
- 1973 · 1970s films
- Country
- USA
- Runtime
- 89 min
- Director
- Jack Starrett
- Updated
- 10 Aug 2026
- Obscurity
- cult (39/100)
Defined in the glossary: Blaxploitation
Tamara Dobson, six feet two, government agent. Shelley Winters overacts gloriously.
A government agent six feet two in heels wages war on a drug empire, and Tamara Dobson plays her as pure glamorous competence, never ruffled, always in couture. Shelley Winters is the cackling, over-the-top villain, and the film leans into style and scale more than grit.
It is slicker and more cartoonish than the Grier films, closer to a Bond picture, and Dobson's poise carries it. The fashion alone is worth the runtime.
Bigger and glossier than most of the cycle, and a fine star vehicle.
Trailer
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Legal options in USA
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Written about
- Exploitation films of the 1970s, the boom and the bust
Exploitation films of the 1970s explained through the ratings gap, the drive-in double bill, the cycles that ran fast, and the censors who cut them.
- Blaxploitation, 1971 to 1975
Melvin Van Peebles caught gonorrhea on his own set, filed a workers' comp claim, and bought more film stock with the settlement. Four years later the studios had mined the audience out and moved on.
Filed alongside
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