Top 5 ass-kicking Pam Grier roles

Don't mess with Pam Grier. The Colorado-residing actress is known for her bad-ass roles in blaxploitation films like Foxy Brown and Coffy, which are both screening tonight as part of the Crest Film Series at Crossroads Theater. In advance of the screening, we took a look at the top five...

By Robin Edwards

September 23, 2011

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Don't mess with Pam Grier. The Colorado-residing actress is known for her bad-ass roles in blaxploitation films like Foxy Brown and Coffy, which are both screening tonight as part of the Crest Film Series at Crossroads Theater. In advance of the screening, we took a look at the top five ass-kicking roles from Pam Grier's vast and colorful acting career. The role: Nurse "Coffy" Coffin in Coffy The ass-kicking: As a nurse named Coffin, Grier sends many to theirs in this revenge flick. Avenging her drug-addict sister, Grier goes after the drug lords of her town, shooting a crooked city councillor in the groin and killing men with a hairpin plucked from her Afro. The role: Lisa Fortier in Scream Blacula Scream The ass-kicking: As the successor to a voodoo queen in this horror movie, Grier is no weak final girl. Instead, she kicks the ass of Blacula (billed in the trailer as "Dracula's soul brother") using the magic of voodoo. The role: Blossom in The Big Bird Cage The ass-kicking: This trashy prison flick has Pam Grier as the ringleader of the female inmate rebellion, leading scantily clad jail babes to fight back against tyrannical guards. Grier wields a knife, threatens castration and sets off explosives. The role: Jackie Brown in Jackie Brown The ass-kicking: While Grier's Jackie Brown in this Quentin Tarantino film starts out as a beaten-down flight attendant arrested for drug-smuggling, through the course of the story she becomes a gun-wielding mastermind whose plans outsmart drug smugglers Samuel L. Jackson and Robert De Niro and eventually get them killed, leaving her with a whole lot of stolen money. The role: Foxy Brown in Foxy Brown The ass-kicking: In this 1974 Jack Hill joint, Grier plays a sexy lady seeking revenge for her boyfriend's murder. While she kicks an unprecedented amount of ass throughout the film (the litany includes starting a lesbian bar fight and setting her rapist on fire) the height of the ass-kicking comes as Grier castrates her enemy and then delivers the genitals to his girlfriend in a pickle jar.

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