Michael Ledo
This was Pam Grier's final blaxploitation film. By now she had stopped doing nude scenes. Pam returns home to find her dad being muscled out of business by some thugs. She springs into action against them. What I like about this film is that it captured the era so well. The large automobiles, the colorful clothes with wide lapels, and the prices for fast food burgers. Pam apparently does her own stunts. The scenes of her running and shooting a gun are comical by today's standards. Pam "runs like a girl" which is unlike tough women in the films today. She also runs around trains, cars, and buildings instead of jumping on roof tops.As a regular film, it is somewhat of a let down, especially compared to Pam's other works such as Coffy, The Big Bird Cage Women in Cages, The Big Doll House, and Scream Blacula Scream.No f-bombs, not much in the sex and nudity department.
zardoz-13
Pistol-packing Pam Grier takes names and kicks butt as the heroine in "Asylum of Satan" director William Girdler's entertaining blaxploitation actioneer "Sheba Baby," co-starring D'Urville Martin and Austin Stoker. "Sheba Baby" is one of several tough chick flicks that Grier appeared in during the 1970s, including "Coffy," "Foxy Brown," and "Friday Foster." The short-lived Girdler co-wrote this thoroughly routine private eye potboiler with producer David Shelton in one night and it features a headstrong female shamus that refuses to rely on a man to help her take care of business. Unfortunately, "Sheba Baby" isn't nearly as good as the blaxploitation movies that Grier made under the supervision of director Jack Hill. Hill helmed the African-American North Carolina native in "Coffy," "Foxy Brown," "The Big Bird Cage," and "The Big Doll House." Anybody that analyzes images of African-American women in cinema should be familiar with these epics. The chief problem with "Sheba Baby" is that our heroine gets too many convenient breaks. Naturally, the secondary villains are trigger happy clowns that couldn't hit the side of a barn with a howitzer. As the main antagonist, Dick Merrifield qualifies as both an egotistical as well as smarmy villain with choice lines like: "Anything worth having is worth stealing." Additionally, composer Monk Huggins does provide a strong, atmospheric orchestral soundtrack, and the best song, with Barbara Mason warbling it, is "Good Man Is Gone." "Sheba Baby" casts Grier as stylist Chicago gumshoe Sheba Shayne. She leaves the Windy City to return to her hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, to help out her father. When she arrives in Louisville, Sheba learns that her father, Andy (Rudy Challenger of "Detroit 9000"), is having trouble with a local black gangster nicknamed Pilot (cigar-chomping D'Urville Martin of "Hammer") who demands that Andy sell out his loan company to Pilot or die.Initially, Pilot dispatches a goon squad to trash Andy's office, but our heroine's father catches them in the act. They turn Sheba's father into a punching bag. Interestingly, during the fight scene, Girdler rarely shows fists smashing flesh. Earlier, Andy's right-hand man, Brick Williams (Austin Stoker of "Horror High"), had sent Sheba a telegram requesting that she return to Louisville, but she didn't receive it immediately thanks to her lazy partner who didn't know where to find her. Brick and Sheba hook up, rekindle their romantic flames, and share a night in the sack. Brick spends most of his time urging Sheba to remain calm in the face of adversity. As a former Louisville, Kentucky, police woman, Sheba prefers to shoot first and ask questions second. After she arrives home, Sheba borrows her father's car and barely escapes being blown to bits. As she is walking out the door to get into her father's car, Andy receives another harassing call from Pilot. Previously, Andy had refused to discuss the prospect of selling his loan company to Pilot, but Andy changes his mind and agrees to talk with the hoodlum. A gratified Pilot warns Andy about the dynamite that has been attached to his ignition with a delayed action fuse. In other words, cranking up the car won't trigger the explosion; the explosion comes ten seconds later. Andy and Brick rescue Sheba before the car blows up. Earlier, Sheba had agreed to let her father handle his problems without her interference. "Dad, I know you think I'm doing a man's job, but I'm not going to sit on the sidelines just because I'm a woman," Sheba tells him. After her near-death experience, Sheba vows to learn who sabotaged her father's car. She grilles an old contact from her days as a cop and threatens the guy with her gun to extract the information. Only after Sheba has ground the guy's face into a bucket of chlorine dust does he relent and tell her about a pay-off at the town's railroad museum. Brick accompanies Sheba and shooting ensues with a flustered Pilot getting away by the skin of his chin.Later, Pilot sends a quintet of out-of-town contract thugs armed-to-the-teeth to trash Andy's office. These gunsels ignore their no-kill orders. Not only do they shoot the loan company office to ribbons, but they also blast Sheba's dad with a shotgun. Sheba retaliates in short order. Wielding her nickel-plated revolver, she guns down three of the four assailants Dirty Harry style. The last hit-man discards his weapon and pleads for mercy. Sheba has her finger on the trigger when Homicide Detective Phil Jackson (Charles Kissinger of "Abby") and a uniform cop arrive on the scene. At the hospital, Andy Shayne dies holding his daughter's hand. Naturally, Pilot is furious at this revelation and his fury borders on apoplexy. Afterward, Sheba tracks down a loan shark, Walker (Christopher Joy of "Cleopatra Jones"), and pries information out of him about the Pilot while she holds him at gunpoint in a car wash. This is one of the better staged scenes with lots of ominous shots of the car wash equipment whirling and humming. Walker warns Pilot about Sheba. Pilot and his henchmen confront Sheba in a parking lot and swap lead. Sheba flees on foot to a nearby carnival. While the police corner one of Pilot's men, she deals with the others. Pilot shoots one of his own accidentally and Sheba runs him down. She pins Pilot to a roller-coaster track and threatens to hold him there until the roller-coaster cuts his head off. Pilot manages to escape after he has spilled his guts to Sheba about the identity and phone number of the big man, Shark (Dick Merrifield of "The Hellcats"), whose reputation is so immaculate that Detective Jackson describes him as "the guy with all the right answers." "Sheba Baby" isn't top-notch Pam Grier. However, the idea that our heroine can handle everything by herself without help from guys makes it interesting as well as entertaining chick flick.
Coventry
My reason for making "Sheba, Baby" priority viewing over all the other Blaxploitation films and Pam Grier vehicles was purely personal, namely the involvement of director William Girdler. I'm fascinated by his short but fruitful career. To enter the world of soul cinema as a 24-year-old white director and immediately being able to cast Pam Grier after the huge success of both "Coffy" and "Foxy Brown" is an achievement that at least demands for a little respect. Sure the film itself has no patch on the two aforementioned titles, but it's a decent and engaging film. The plot is extremely standard, with Pam as a tough Chicago private eye returning to her hometown of Louisville because the local organized crime network there violently moves in on her father's modest but traditional loaning company. The matters get really personal when Sheba narrowly escapes a car bomb which was meant to kill her stubborn father. Sheba rolls up the malignant network from the bottom of the ladder (miserable couriers and hired assailants) all the way to the top (sly and sleazy white guys on yachts). Pam acts as mean and looks as yummy as she always does, with a wide selection of tight and revealing outfits as well as various hair styles. There are some nice and nasty bits of violence (including a virulent and blood-soaked gunfight inside the loan agency which makes the PG-rating rather questionable), a funky soundtrack, vivid dialogs and a ravishing and sexy Pam Grier. Did I mention Pam Grier already?
kohntarkosz
Yeah, I guess this movie is kinda dull compared to some of Pam Grier's other films. The plot is overly familiar, the dialog stilted, and some of the acting isn't too good. But it's worth seeing for the lengthy stretch near the end of the film, where we see Ms Grier in a sexy blue wetsuit, with the zipper half unzipped. Yeah, it seems like a frivolous point when discussing an actress of Pam Grier's talent, but she also happens to be an extremely gorgeous woman, and back in the day, she had a body that wouldn't quit. It's nice to see it being showcased in a tight wetsuit. Rent the DVD, and then tell me I'm wrong. Can't, can you? That's because you know I'm right! :-) And yes, I really did give a 10 just for the wetsuit scenes! ;-)
