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Shaft (1971)
Reprinted by permission of Donald Bogle from his film reference
work, Blacks in American Films & Television: An Illustrated
Encyclopedia (Simon & Schuster)
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When his daughter (Sherry Brewer) is kidnapped by the mob, a
Harlem underworld boss (Moses Gunn) hires a black detective
named John Shaft to find the girl. That's the basic plotline of
this once immensely popular film, which is not much different
from a conventional white detective story. But black audiences
loved watching Richard Roundtree's exploits as Shaft: he
handles the ladies with proper aplomb, rubs out the baddies
with appropriate macho skill, and struts his wares in his
leather coat with sheer confidence and glee, all to the bop and
sway of Isaac Hayes' pulsating score. Here's a black man who
knows who he is and is not about to take anything from anybody.
Seen today, the women in Shaft are poorly drawn; mostly,
they seem to be there to serve as testaments to Shaft's
virility. As is the case with other heroes of the
blaxploitation era, Shaft has not only a black woman but a
white one as well. At times, the use of the white female
character might be read as a defiant response to those fragile,
virginal white heroines of D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a
Nation. Now the idea is that the white woman has been pulled
down from her pedestal and that indeed she can now be had.
Parks'' direction is neither surprising nor innovative and
certainly lacks the pictorial lushness of his earlier film
The Learning Tree. At times Shaft [1971]
looks downright tacky. Yet it must be admitted that Parks'
strong identification with Shaft as a slick, pretty, sexy dude
gives the picture unexpected heat and zip; it's doubtful if any
white director would have taken as much relish in the hero's
derring-do.
Curiously enough, though, no doubt because Shaft is at heart a
man-of-the-law-type hero, this film in later years has proven
far more acceptable to the large white audience than such
features as Sweet Sweetback's Baadassss Song and
Super Fly (neither of which has ever had a television
network showing as did Shaft, both of which have true
underground, outlaw heroes, free of traditional bourgeois
values). Later Shaft was even turned into a routine
television private eye series.
Added note: at the time of Shaft's release, its studio,
the great MGM, was in the midst of financial difficulties. MGM
thought Shaft might make a little bit of money. Of
course, it made a mint and helped keep MGM in business. Also:
Isaac Hayes won an Oscar® for Best Song, one of the most
famous in movie history.
Producer: Joel Freeman, David Golden
Director: Gordon Parks
Screenplay: Ernest Tidyman, John D. F. Black
Cinematography: Urs Furrer
Film Editing: Hugh A. Robertson
Art Direction: Emanuel Gerard
Music: Isaac Hayes, J.J. Johnson
Cast: Richard Roundtree (John Shaft), Moses Gunn (Bumpy Jonas), Charles Cioffi (Vic Androzzi), Christopher St. John (Ben Buford), Gwen Mitchell (Ellie Moore), Lawrence Pressman (Sergeant Tom Hannon).
C-100m. Letterboxed. Closed captioning.
by Donald Bogle
 
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Deals With the Devil - 11/28
People who make pacts with Satan is the theme and we've got five cinematic case histories including Richard Burton as Doctor Faustus (1967), Dudley Moore in Bedazzled (1967) and Hurd Hatfield in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945).
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