An emergency room nurse (Pam Grier) with too fine a name to toil at a hospital becomes “the baddest one chick hit squad that ever hit town” when she takes on the pushers and power brokers she blames for her sister’s drug overdose.

Written and directed by Jack Hill – who worked with Grier in The Big Doll House and The Big Bird Cage and was a protégé of Roger Corman’s – this American International Pictures drive-in classic was the first to propel Grier to the top as a major leading lady. Starring roles in Foxy Brown, Friday Foster and several others followed, as did a durable career throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s, until Quentin Tarantino directed her to an Oscar nomination in Jackie Brown.

The film gets off on the right foot with Coffy luring a drug kingpin into the back of a Chrysler, going back to his pad and blowing his head clean off with a sawed-off shotgun. There’s some good comedy, like the entrance of King George (Robert DoQui), possibly the most mild-mannered pimp ever put on screen.

Pam Grier does not give a necessarily great performance here. She gives what the material demands of her and no more, no less. That said, there is no way possible to take your eyes off her whenever she’s on screen. Yes, as mandated by the producers, she loses her clothes often, but Grier can act, and has charisma, energy and knows how to administer a smack down as well.

Along with Grier, Sid Haig is a standout as “Omar”, a hatchet man for the (what else?) Italian mobster. He steals every scene he’s in, with his bald dome, funky attitude and great acting chops. Haig has terrific chemistry with Grier. Memorably cut up with wire Coffy has hidden in her afro, Omar unfortunately does not return to menace her in the climax.

The gratuitous sex and violence is low down cheap and dirty, another asset to the film. A highlight is Omar dragging King George – or a mannequin that looks like it was dressed in pimp clothes – from his car through the streets, with Haig laughing all the way as he bounces the dummy off an obstacle course of curbs and wooden crates.

The five dollar production has a $1.98 script by the whiter-than-white Jack Hill. It’s difficult not to dig this movie though. With scenes like a ho beatdown, in which Coffy slaps a room full of jealous call girls around and everyone ends up with their top pulled off, who wouldn’t enjoy it?

Roy Ayers provided several over-the-top songs that are so bad they add to the enjoyment of the film.