Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold (1975)

Touches You

Just perfect...

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

Tamara Dobson returns as the high fashion government agent in this fun, and very dumb, sequel to the 1973 hit. This time Dobson is in Hong Kong trying to find the drug dealers who've kidnapped her cronies (jive-talking brothers Matthew & Melvin Johnson). She's helped out by Shaw Bros. star Tanny, as Mi Ling Fong, a very efficient Chinese detective and the two women have great chemistry. Director Charles Bail brings a lot of style to the film, aided by very colorful cinematography by Alan Hume. Dobson wears one outlandish outfit after another including, at one point, a fox stole. As in the earlier film, she's a very commanding presence. The supporting cast is stellar and includes Norman Fell as Dobson's befuddled superior, creepy Christopher Hunt and Stella Stevens as the "Dragon Lady." It's action packed though not the classic the original is.

A much better looking lesbian villainess for Cleopatra Jones to fight in this second one of the series! Stella Stevens as the "Dragon Lady" is a two-face: smiling and cooing to her casino guests, but a deadly bitch to those who cross her (including one of her Chinese girl lovers whom she has killed when the girl decides she prefers Black dude Albert Popwell instead of her blonde sapphic mistress.The climatic fight to the death between the black heroine and the white villainess is totally rousing, and the outcome prompted cheers from the 1975 audience! Rumors of Stella's nude bath scene are still unconfirmed. It would be great to see!

CONTAINS SPOILERS: It's a case of "sack the blacks, sign the chinks", when Cleo jets off to the Orient hot on the trail of two undercover agents who have mysteriously disappeared after an explosion on a sampan full of opium. In Hong Kong she teams up with shady operator Mi Ling, a female kung fu superstar in her own fight - but that's another article. After layin' some kung-fu moves on the local Triads, they head to Macao to investigate the white-as-snow owner of the 'Casino of Gold', the Dragon Lady, played by Stella Stevens. Stella spent the 60s looking sweet and acting dumb; here she plays a vicious lesbian heroin lord (again with the lesbians?) and gets deadly with a blade. Tamara Dobson returns as Cleo, minus the big hair but still the show pony for those ghastly 70s fashions. The film plays up the comedy and was a hit for a brain-dead actioner, but the genre, like Stella Stevens at the end of Casino of Gold, was dead in the water.

I think this is one of the best movies during the Blaxploitation era. Its full of Suspense and Drama. I would recommend this movie to anyone. I gove it two BIG thumbs up!!!!!!!!