cult film freak: JIM KELLY KICKS FRONT IN ROBERT CLOUSE'S 'BLACK BELT JONES'

Poster deliberately transforming Bruce Lee into Jim Kelly for BLACK BELT JONES Year: 1974 Rating: ****

Anyone thinking ENTER THE DRAGON director Robert Clouse simply got lucky need only experience BLACK BELT JONES starring Bruce Lee's cocky black rival and overall fan-favorite Jim Kelly who, giant afro and all, takes on the mafia in what Clouse neatly balances as part martial arts, part gritty downtown-blaxploitation and part GODFATHER-inspired mafia crime flick...

The latter serves the plot as Jones's friend Scatman Crothers owns an urban karate studio, and the mob needs the land... eventually inherited by the first James Bond girl in Gloria Hendry as Crothers' daughter, who winds up both Jones's love interest and a practically equal karate partner...

Jim Kelly in Robert Clouse's BLACK BELT JONES

Everything's thrown into this breezy pot, enhanced by the locations, from the ghetto to one standout sequence at a beachfront mansion where Jones's white-girl-gymnast team sneaks into the mafia headquarters, providing the kind of resilient action/distraction that makes JONES a kind of spy-adventure as well...

Featuring eclectic side-characters from scene-stealing/smack-talking poolhall owner Malik Carter to mob goon Vince Barbi to karate school climbers Alan Weeks and Eric Laneuville, BLACK BELT JONES... winding up with a foamy finale inside a car wash while scored by Luchi De Jesus and DRAGON composer Dennis Coffey... plays both lightweight and ultra-violent without being too silly or sadist: a near-perfect 1970's-exploitation tour-de-force.