Sold to moviegoers as "the biggest black action picture ever made," Three the Hard Way (1974) was a bid by Allied Artists to form a Blaxploitation super-group in Jim Brown from Slaughter (1972), Fred Williamson from Hammer (1972), and Jim Kelly from Black Belt Jones (1974). With a higher than average budget and location shooting slated for Los Angeles, Chicago, New York City, and Washington, D.C., Three the Hard Way was entrusted to Gordon Parks, Jr., son of Shaft (1971) director Gordon Parks, whose own feature film directorial debut, Super Fly (1972), had earned $25 million back from an investment of $500,000. The script keeps its protagonists on the side of righteousness - solid citizens all (a record producer, an entrepreneur, and a martial arts expert, all accustomed to the finer things in life) who must pool their resources to oppose a maniacal white supremacist (Jay Robinson) poised to taint the nation's water supply with a toxin lethal to Afro-Americans. Upping the ante of automatic weapon fire, explosions, and car chases, Three the Hard Way remains raw enough to preserve its street cred; though the film made back its $1.8 million budget during its first week in cinemas, the film was less a harbinger of bigger things than a turn on Blaxploitation's downward arc. Brown, Williamson, and Kelly would reunite one more time, albeit in Spain, for the Euro-western Take a Hard Ride (1975).

By Richard Harland Smith