Friday Foster (1975)

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Friday Foster (Pam Grier) is a photographer for "Glance" magazine. She sneaks out to the airport to secretly photograph a black billionaire flying in at night. She manages to capture on camera an assassination attempt. She tries to do some investigating while becoming a target herself.While this film has all the elements of a Blaxplotation film, it is more subdued. There are less colorful characters, less pimps, and the music is less whack-a-da and more softly soulful.Film includes Carl Weathers, Scatman Crothers, Jim Backus, and Eartha Kitt.Brief sex and nudity (Rosalind Miles, Pam Grier, + others)

Friday Foster is an ensemble piece that portrays a broad spectrum of the African American community. When her childhood friend is murdered, Friday, a journalist turned detective sets out to find her killer, all while being pursued by someone who wants her dead because of something she's seen. I loved the idea of a film full of Black people who are funny and campy and intent when tackling the idea of powerful Black men unifying!

Pam Grier looks desirable and gives a playful, likable performance as Friday Foster, another one of her patented liberated and resourseful heroines, but she leaves most of the physical stuff to her male co-star, Yaphet Kotto, this time around. These two make a great pair and it's a mystery why they didn't work together more often. The rest of the cast is solid as well, right down to the boy who plays Pam's little brother, who has some very funny line readings. The film itself is not among Pam's most exciting: the story is muddled, and some promising action sequences (like a car chase....in which she drives a hearse!) fall flat (kudos to the stuntmen jumping from rooftop to rooftop, though). But the well-chosen cast, the bright colors, and the funky dialogue & score keep it fun enough. (**)

Friday Foster, based on the 1970's era comic strip by Jim Lawrence and Jorge Longaron, is about a young black woman magazine photographer. In the original strips, Friday was the assistant to a white photographer; in the film, it's Friday herself who's the shutterbug. Friday (Pam Grier) works for Glamour magazine, and her boss (Julius Harris) sends her to cover the airport arrival of Blake Tarr (Thalmus Rasulala) a self-made billionaire, and apparently the richest black man in the world. Friday gets more than she bargained for as this presumably ordinary assignment turns into an attempted murder, with Tarr as the target. Friday got photos of the hit men, so she becomes a target as well. As it so happens, Tarr is organizing a massive meeting of influential African-Americans at his vast estate; it figures to be an agenda-planning affair for black America. The bad guys (who are for now anonymous) don't take kindly to a black think-tank getting traction, and Friday's misadventures lead her to discover that someone plans to murder everyone who attends this event.Her partner in (fighting) crime is Colt (Yaphet Kotto), a private detective who likes Friday, but with him she keeps it strictly platonic. She reserves her romantic side for Tarr and for Senator David Lee Hart (Paul Benjamin). A pre-Rocky Carl Weathers (as the hit-man Yarbro) gives chase to Friday for much of the film, and a pre-Love Boat Ted Lange is a young pimp who openly pines for Friday to join his enterprise. Other notable actors in the film include Earth Kitt, Scatman Crothers, Godfrey Cambridge, and Mr. Howell himself, Jim Backus. The action in the film is fast and slick, and the narrative manages to maintain a certain knowing campiness, despite the presumably serious political intrigue of the plot.Produced and released during the wane of the black-action film trend of the 1970's, the film met with modest response at the box office; the summer success of "Jaws" lit the fuse that would explode with "Star Wars" two years later, and Hollywood abandoned low-budgeted action fare aimed at ethnics for bigger-budget 'mass-appeal' blockbusters.