Classic Black Cinema Series: ‘Coffy’

The 1973 film that made Pam Grier a bankable star, was, like many 1970s Blacksploitation classics, directed by a white guy — in this case, low-budget visionary Jack Hill. The crisply paced tale of a nurse visiting vengeance on the drug lords ruining her community boasts a killer soundtrack, a sense of the absurd and a feminist outlook. Grier and Hill collaborated closely on the project, mixing a social message among the mayhem.