Friday Foster - Im Netz der Schwarzen Spinne

Pam Grier is back in action in the big screen adaptation of 'Friday Foster'. Friday Foster debuted in January 1970 as the first comic strip to star a black woman. It was syndicated and featured soap operatic story lines drawn in a realistic style, similar to Mary Worth, and starred an ex- model turned photojournalist somewhat like Diahann Carol.

I think a lot of blaxploitation fans have a hard time getting their heads around this movie because it's a different role for Pam Grier than the gritty asskicker she played so well in movies like Coffy. Nonetheless, this film gives Pam an opportunity to show range as an actress. I think Pam Grier is one of the most beautiful actresses in the history of film with real star charisma. It's good to see her getting credit.

Although it has the elements of classic blaxploitation - car chases, shootouts - Friday Foster is fun, light hearted comic strip of a film. Definitely see it.

Friday Foster is probably the most fun of all the 70's Pam Grier flicks. Though not as good overall as Coffy or Foxy Brown, both had a certain amount of serious content; not Foxy Brown. Here Pam's intrepid reporter discovers a dangerous plot to eliminate black leaders. She's aided by Yaphett Kotto, hunted by Carl Weathers, and along the way she runs into Scatman Crothers, the guy who played the villan in Bucktown and the hero in Blacula, one of the cast of Across 110th Street and the bartender from the Loveboat. The film is light, but very amusing...I recommend it for Pam Grier fans.

What I'm reviewing now was the very last movie Pam Grier made for American International Pictures. She plays the title character as a photographer for a magazine who's on assignment to shoot the arrival of the "black Howard Hughes" Blake Tarr (Thalmus Rasulala). Accompanying her on some of her assignments other than the one I mentioned above is private detective Colt Hawkins (Yaphet Kotto). I'll stop there and just say how fun I found the whole thing and why not with a cast that includes Eartha Kitt, Scatman Crothers, Jim Backus, Ted Lange without his mustache that he became famous for when he was cast in "The Love Boat" a few years later, a pre-Apollo Creed Carl Weathers, and Godfrey Cambridge several months before his untimely death. I can't admit that everything that happened made sense but I found myself smiling if not always laughing the whole time I was watching. So on that note, Friday Foster is well worth a look.

Jack Hill's brilliant 'Coffy' is one of the 1970s best exploitation movies and remains the definitive Pam Grier role. It's such a pity that within two years Grier was forced into making something as mediocre as 'Friday Foster'. It's no wonder he career quickly went down the toilet after lame movies like this and 'Sheba, Baby'! 'Coffy' is a classic revenge movie and actually had some element of realism. Hill's next collaboration with Grier 'Foxy Brown' stepped away from that, and I didn't enjoy it as much, but compared to this it's a masterpiece. In 'Friday Foster' Grier is getting even closer to 'Cleopatra Jones' territory, but without the fun and style of that movie or its sequel. This movie actually has one of the best supporting casts of any blaxploitation film, but even that fails to satisfy. Yaphet Kotto plays Grier's detective buddy, and Julius Harris is her boss. Plus there's Scatman Crothers ('Black Belt Jones'), Thalmus Rasulala ('Blacula'), Godfrey Cambridge ('Cotton Comes To Harlem'), Paul Benjamin ('Across 110th Street') and Carl Weathers ('Rocky'), as well as Eartha Kitt, Isaac the bartender from 'The Love Boat' (Ted Lange) and even inexplicably 'Gilligan's Island's Thurston Howell III (Jim Backus)! As much as I love Grier and Kotto, 'Friday Foster's paper thin plot didn't hold my interest for very long and I was bored way before the climactic shootout. I regard this and 'Truck Turner' (which funnily enough also co-stars Yaphet Kotto) as the two most disappointing blaxploitation movies I've seen. If you want to see Pam Grier at her best watch 'Coffy', then follow it up with 'Foxy Brown' and 'Jackie Brown'. All three movies wipe the floor with this limp effort.

Sexiest black woman of all time Pam Grier kicks ass and looks great doing it. This film has everything you are looking for in a blaxploitation flick. Scatman Crothers and the bartender from the "Love Boat"; what else would you want? Great!