Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold

 Howdy Rotten Readers! Well I felt we could stay away from Horror and that means we're gonna dive into some more Blaxploitation. We will be heading back to the 6'2" heroine with a mean mule kick and dead eye aim. This is Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold. 

 

You're very tall, Rupaul.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our amazonian agent Cleo Jones (Tamara Dobson of Cleopatra Jones of Fuzz, Cleopatra Jones, Murder at the World Series, Jason of Star Command, Buck Rogers in the 25^th Century, Chained Heat and Amazons) gets a call from her superiors about a couple of her fellow agents, the Johnson brothers, Matthew (Albert Popwell of The Peace Killers, Dirty Harry, Night Gallery, Fuzz, Search, Cleopatra Jones, Magnum Force, The Single Girls, The Enforcer, Steel Cowboy and Sudden Impact) and Melvin (Caro Kenyatta of Night Gallery, Trader Horn, Cleopatra Jones, The Young Nurses, Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold and Uncle Joe Shannon), from the first film have been captured by a notorious casino owner known as the Dragon Lady (Stella Stevens of Say One for Me, The Nutty Professor, The Silencers, The Poseidon Adventure, Adventures Beyond Belief, Down the Drain, Santa Barbara, The Terror Within II, Eye of the Stranger, South Beach, Little Devils: The Birth, Hard Drive, Molly & Gina and Illicit Dreams), a militant lesbian with world conquering objectives. Again another lesbian drug queen-pin. Yeah even Doctor Doom can't top that.

 

We get you Happy Ending, no sweat!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ms. Jones finds the boys were shanghaied in Hong Kong and she'll need local information. Ultimately she's looking for a guide and not a partner but she's getting both with Mi Ling (Ni Tien of Shui wei cai, My Darling Slaves, The Rat Catcher, Forbidden Tales of Two Cities, All in the Family, Wu qi bu you, Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold, Black Magic 2, Crocodile, Little Dragon Maiden and Edge of Darkness) also known as Tanny, Ling has the goods on the Dragon Lady in knowing her Macaoian casino is also importing heroin and distribution to the masses.

Cleo and Tanny whoop some serious ass in the infamous Walled City, working side by side like true partners cleaning out a den of scum and villainy.  No they're not in Mos Eisley. The best part of this is a bike gang joins them in their struggles in order to crash through the casino.

Most of the story unfolds like a Bond movie, minus Cleopatra isn't seducing women left and right. The violence levels as well as sex isn't anywhere near a Pam Grier flick. Dobson refused to do any nudity and overall the film feels like a spy drama than it did blaxploitation. As for as action and fighting is concerned, this movie ratchets up the drama. Solid gunfights and plenty of chase sequences. That even surpasses the original film. Stevens actually had some training with a sword. Take that Christopher Lambert!

 

 It's Cleo. Ms. Jones, if yer nasty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 We have enough martial arts in this flick to give it a Hong Kong Cinema vibe as well. The Shaw Brothers were heavily involved with our movie as they were WB's Hong Kong Kung Fu flicks go-to guys. To say it is a trifle confusing is like saying Ghengsis Khan was a bit adventurous.

Between bikes flying around as much as the lead being spewed, Cleo reminds the kids they aren't Evel Knievel. Maybe a bit of Steve McQueen via The Great Escape buuuut, more of the tossing a baseball at a wall rather than the bike stunts.

 

I still love that her previous handler Crawford (Dan Frazer of Take the Money and Run, Tick, Tick Tick, Fuzz, Cleopatra Jones and Deconstructing Harry) mattered so little (in spite of helping her in the first movie) that they don't even go into detail while he wasn't handling her case files anymore. Instead I got the best laugh when Mr. Roper (character actor Norman Fell of The Good Life, Love, American Style, The Heist, McCloud, Three's Company, Needles and Pins, Rabbit Test and The End)as Stanley Hagel. If he was any less hip, his pants would be around his ankles.

I was a little bummed that Mrs. Johnson (Esther Rolle of Nothing But a Man, The Bold Ones: The Senator, Who Says I Can't Ride a Rainbow!, Cleopatra Jones, Maude, Summer of My German Soldier, The Incredible Hulk and Good Times) wasn't a reprise. I mean her boys have been abducted for crying out loud!

The god awful silver eyeshadow Cleo wears has been dabbed on by Dobson rather than a proper makeup artist. No idea why that happened but it did. The film and its precursor was released on DVD by 2010. WB released it on an inferior version (looked like a conversion from VHS to DVD) in 2004. 

 

Hey man, this ain't L.A. Knock that off.

 

 

 

 

 

 Like many sequels they are deemed inferior to the predecessors. This film has enough going for it but I do understand why this didn't have the draw as the original did. Fast paced it may be, but the story felt a bit too close to the original and really lacked a cohesive story path of its own.

Maybe the audience wasn't digging the scene as there was a dip in blaxploitation by 1976. So The Mechanic and Dirty Harry series were more viewed? Cleo is not quite the anti-hero there so this could be the reason behind that standing. Overall I felt it could have benefited from a third movie to round out the series but due to the lack of ticket sales, WB just didn't see a third film was likely.

 

Fine, Mr. Roper. I'll smack Jack.