CLEOPATRA JONES (1973)

• Director: Jack Starrett
• Cast: Tamara Dobson, Bernie Casey, Brenda Sykes, Shelley Winters
• Film: 89mins | USA | Subtitles | Intermission
• Event: 20:45 – 23:15 [18+]

Our second film is the best dressed in our programme and features not ONE, but TWO GIRL TRASH GODDESSES.

Model CLEOPATRA JONES (Tamara Dobson) knows martial arts, drives a ’73 Corvette Stingray and is a secret undercover agent. Driven to stem the flow of heroin into her drug ravaged community, she fights the war on drugs in platform heels and a fur coat. When she orders the torching of a Turkish poppy field, the infamous drug lord ‘Mommy’ (Shelley Winters) and her gang of minions set their sights on revenge.

Tamara Dobson: film star, model, bonafide action hero. When she wasn’t karate-chopping camp villains, Tamara (rhymes with ‘camera’) was a successful model and the face of Fabergé’s Tigress perfume. She could do it all: not only was she trained in martial arts but she also heavily influenced her character’s legendary look by doing her own make-up and requesting the it-designer of the era, Giorgio di Sant’Angelo, to do her costumes. Tamara might have been cast as the black female James Bond but she refused to be pigeonholed as a feminist icon in an era when feminism was overwhelmingly white: “I don’t think of Cleopatra Jones as being a women’s libber. I see her as a very positive, strong lady who knows what she has to do.”

Shelley Winters wasn’t the star of CLEOPATRA JONES, but boy did she steal every scene she was in. The thing about Shelley was she gave it everything, whether winning Oscars for THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK or A PATCH OF BLUE or bathing her adult sons in Roger Corman’s BLOODY MAMA. It wasn’t unusual for Hollywood actresses of the studio system era to take a turn for the B-movie in later life, often interpreted as a tragic decline, an unglamorous refusal to go quietly. But at 50, Winters embarked on the most prolific period of her career, delivering utterly camp and shameless performances in 25 films, many of them in the exploitation genre. A GIRL TRASH icon, easily on a par with fellow psychobiddies Crawford and Davis, but not nearly as celebrated.

Join us to watch these GODDESSES go head to head on Wednesday 28 January, 8:45pm.

/// GIRL TRASH celebrates the femme filmmakers of trash and exploitation cinema, hosted by Zodiac Film Club and Token Homo. All films are served with introductions, intermissions, prize giveaways, and subtitles / captions where possible. Tickets from £3.50 + fees. Adults 18+ only. Follow @zodiacfilmclub and @tokenhomo on Instagram for info and updates. Please contact the venue for access information. ///

Programme supported by Film Hub London, managed by Film London. Proud to be a partner of the BFI Film Audience Network, funded by the National Lottery. www.filmlondon.org.uk/film-hub-london