Search - Coffy on DVD

MPAA Rating: R Content Advisory: Violence, Nudity, Adult Situations, Not For Children, Adult Language Movie Release: 1973 DVD Release: 01/09/2001 Format: DVD - Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV Audio Tracks: English, French, Spanish Subtitles: French, Spanish SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Run Time: 1 hrs 30 mins Studio: MGM Members Wishing: 2 Genres: Action, Crime Thriller, Blaxploitation

Writer-director Jack Hill (Spider Baby, Switchblade Sisters) managed to beat Death Wish to the screens by a year with this violent tale of a citizen touched by crime and deciding to fight back. Her little 11-year old sister is a hopeless addict, the police can't help, and poor Nurse "Coffy" Coffin (Pam Grier) has no choice but to take the law into her own hands. Posing as a Jamaican prostitute, Coffy infiltrates the lairs of pimp King George (Robert DoQui) and kingpin pusher Vitroni (Allan Arbus). Eventually, after her childhood sweetheart is beaten into a coma and she finds out her politician-lover (Booker Bradshaw) is involved, Coffy kills everyone with a shotgun. However, by having a black woman named Coffy get injected with a sugar mixture (the crooks think it's heroin), one can only imagine the filmmakers cackling about Coffy with cream and sugar. In fact, the original ad line promised "Coffy...she'll cream you!" ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

Pam Grier - Coffy
Booker Bradshaw - Brunswick
Robert DoQui - King George
William Elliott - Carter
Allan Arbus - Vitroni
John Perak - Aleva

Released into the DVD world as part of MGM/UA's "Soul Cinema" sub-brand, Coffy actually holds up very well for a low-budget blaxploitation effort. Credit writer/director Jack Hill and star Pam Grier for that. MGM/UA can also be given a little credit for having found a very nice print to work from -- scratches and blemishes are nowhere to be seen, and the only real strike against it is that it does seem to be a low-contrast print, in keeping unfortunately with the process methods of the late '60s through early '80s. Given that the print has low contrast, areas that should have solid blacks are slightly grey, and there is an overall grainy effect in less brightly lit scenes, though the image does stay reasonably sharp. Some compression artifacts are also -- barely -- visible in larger dark areas, probably because the compression engineer skimped a little on the bit budget. There is no evidence of stairstepping or edge enhancement. Colors are good, and fairly accurate for the most part, but very muted, thanks again to the low contrast. The overall image quality -- more to do with the print and budget than the DVD transfer -- is about on a par with a decently made TV movie. The image is non-anamorphic and letterboxed to 1.85:1, the aspect ratio of the movie.
The soundtrack is likewise about on a par with TV movies of the day. A certain amount of clean-up has been done, along with some maximizing, but nothing else, which means that much of the mono track sounds thin and feeble, though dialogue is clear enough. There are French and Spanish tracks, both mono; the French has not been maximized, and the noise reduction on both seems to have been crudely applied. The dubbing is passable in both cases, though the Spanish track seems to have been recently redubbed -- the dialogue is considerably louder than the music and effects. Jack Hill provides a scene-specific running commentary track, providing not only production information, but quite a bit of social context and history. While his delivery is low-key and a bit droning, it's an engaging commentary that goes non-stop from first frame almost to the last. The DVD also includes a theatrical trailer and 16 chapter stops. There is no booklet or insert card. ~ Steven E. McDonald, All Movie Guide