Pam Grier was the unquestioned queen of blaxploitation in the 1970s, and for a good reason -- she was strong, beautiful and charismatic, and if she'd arrived on the scene a decade or two later when there were more diverse roles available for African-American actors, she might have become a major mainstream movie star like Angela Bassett or Halle Berry. But in the 1970s, Grier found herself doing most of her work in low-budget action vehicles for New World Pictures and American International Pictures, and Sheba Baby is a movie that Grier pretty much carries on her shoulders. William Girdler's screenplay is patchy and never does an especially good job of explaining just why the bad guys are trying to shut down a bunch of black-owned businesses (beyond simply being bad guys), and his direction is herky-jerky, failing to maintain a consistent pace or give the picture a compelling visual sense (in the party sequence, he seems to think that repeatedly cutting to folks eating cheese and crackers equals decadent elegance). And while there are a few other strong personalities in the cast (most notably Austin Stoker, who went on to star in John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13, and D'urville Martin, a blaxpolitation regular who both co-starred in and directed the frantic Rudy Ray Moore classic Dolemite), they don't get much to do in this story. That leaves Pam Grier as Sheba Shayne, and she makes the movie worth watching despite its many faults. Grier is seriously sexy here, even with a PG rating preventing her from showing much skin, and she brings a fresh and natural attitude to her performance -- strong without being cocky, cool without feeling forced -- that overcomes the flawed script and helps her make Sheba a character worth watching. Pam Grier made a number of films better than this, and in 1997 Quentin Tarantino finally gave her the sort of well-written star showcase she long deserved with Jackie Brown, but Sheba Baby does show why she became such a favorite with the grindhouse audience back in the day -- she was a strong and beautiful leading lady with spunk to spare, and even in a mediocre movie she carries herself like a star of the first order.