Thanks to the British Film Institute, there’s a list of films that played Scala. To celebrate the release of Severin’s new documentary, I’ll share a few of these movies every day. You can see the whole list on Letterboxd.

Jack Starrett knew how to make dependable and entertaining movies. Nam’s Angels, Slaughter, Race With the Devil, Hollywood Man, Kiss My Grits, The Strange Vengeance of Rosalie and Run, Angel, Run! He’s also a fine actor, enlivening Blazing Saddles, The Girls from Thunder Strip and First Blood.

Cleopatra “Cleo” Jones (Tamara Dobson) is the coolest. She’s an international supermodel who drives a ’73 Corvette Stingray, volunteers for the B&S House — love that name — which is a street help group run by her lover Reuben Masters (Bernie Casey) and, oh yeah, she’s also a secret agent.

Her goal is to stop drugs from destroying her community and she starts by burning the poppy fields owned by drug lord Mommy (Shelley Winters). Mommy might run the cops and have drug dealers like “Doodlebug” Simpkins (Antonio Fargas) on her side, but she can’t even match up to Cleopatra.

Unlike so many blacksploitation films, Cleopatra never gets naked. There’s a lot of equality in her relationship with Reuben, but there is an evil lesbian obsessed with sex role for Mommy, so it’s not all forward thinking.

The cops in this are at war with the black community, while Cleopatra, working as a Special Agent to the President, seeks to lift people up and help them to improve their station in life. She’s the authority figure we wish we had. Plus, she wears ten different Giorgio di Sant’Angelo outfits, so she’s always at the front of fashion.