Blaxploitation Education: Shaft
This is where the genre really gets cooking, with an iconic character, costumes, and theme song.
Shaft
Written by Ernest Tidyman and John D.F. Black
Directed by Gordon Parks
1971
Now here’s a Blaxploitation movie I’ve seen before. That’s not exactly surprising; this is the quintessential film in the genre, the one that you’re most likely to watch if you’re interested in the cool movies of the 1970s. Even if you haven’t seen it, you have to be familiar with the iconic theme song by Isaac Hayes. It’s easy to see why it was a hit; Richard Roundtree oozes cool as the title character, and there’s plenty of action and excitement. Black audiences hungry for a hero they could get behind must have been ecstatic to get a movie in which one of their own was fully in control, refusing to be intimidated by the police or powerful gangsters, and ready to kick ass at all times.
The movie was adapted from a novel by Ernest Tidyman, a white writer. Tidyman collaborated on the screenplay with another white writer, John D.F. Black, and apparently, he was unhappy with what he thought was fake-sounding slang that got added. But 50 years later, it’s hard to tell what was authentic; it all seems pretty cool. That’s the core of what makes this movie so memorable: Shaft is one bad mother (shut your mouth!). He’s got his leather trenchcoat and turtleneck shirt, his excellent hairstyle (which I’m informed is known as a TWA or teeny-weeny afro), his pointed sideburns, and his sweet moustache. He pretty much owns the screen as soon as he appears and throughout the whole movie.
As we know, Shaft is a Black private dick (who’s a sex machine with all the chicks), and in the opening scene, we see him get hassled by some cops as he heads toward his office, and a few other local characters let him know that there are a couple of guys from uptown looking for him. They try to get the drop on him, but he’s too crafty for that, and he ends up having a fight in which one of them dies after crashing through a window and falling to the street below. Then, Shaft gets questioned by the same police he interacted with earlier, and while they lean on him, threatening to charge him with manslaughter and take away his private detective license, he’s having none of it. He lets them know that maybe he’ll work with them, but he’ll have to see how things play out first. It’s a great intro; this is a guy who won’t be intimidated and who’s ready to play all the angles to figure out how he can come out on top.
The plot kicks in in earnest when Shaft gets a visit from Bumpy Jonas (Moses Gunn), the guy who originally sent the thugs to intimidate him. Bumpy is the top gangster in Harlem, but he needs Shaft’s help because his daughter has been kidnapped. He claims that he doesn’t know who did it, but he points Shaft in the direction of a Black revolutionary group known as the Lumumbas. Shaft manages to track down this group because he knows its leader, a guy named Ben Buford (Christopher St. John), and we get an idea of his street smarts as he works the streets of Harlem, questioning various people, including future Blaxploitation mainstay Antonio Fargas.
When Shaft crashes the Lumumbas’ meeting, he’s just in time for a shootout, barely escaping with Buford (he gets a great line, telling Buford “When you lead your revolution, Whitey better be standing still, because you don’t run worth a damn no more!”). After connecting with the police again, he learns that there’s a gang war brewing, with the Mafia bringing in people from around the country to try to take back territory in Harlem from Bumpy, and it’s likely they’re the ones that were responsible for the kidnapping. This means that Bumpy was just playing him, and even though he does want to get his daughter back, he’s also trying to gain leverage and protect his interests.
This gives Shaft another chance to demonstrate that he won’t be played or intimidated. When he and Buford go to confront Bumpy, he refuses to allow Bumpy’s lieutenant Willy (Drew Bundini Brown) to search him (he asks Willy, “Who searches you?” and when Willy says “Nobody,” he replies “Then get the same cat to search us.”). He and Buford agree to get some guys together to find out where Bumpy’s daughter is being held and rescue her, but they negotiate a pretty hefty sum for their services.
That’s the focus of the rest of the movie, with Shaft and company playing the Mafia guys in order to find out where the girl is being held. It’s a pretty narrow focus; he doesn’t really care about the larger gang war; he’s just there to rescue this innocent girl and get paid for his services. As has been true for this whole story, it’s a pleasure to watch him work the angles and stay on top of everything. In one especially good scene, he poses as a bartender to get close to a couple guys who are staking out his apartment, then calls the cops on them just in time to have them hauled in after he reveals who he is. In a moment reminiscent of when Sidney Poitier slapped a racist, he responds to one guy spitting at him by smashing a bottle over his head.
This interaction gives him a chance to find out where the girl is being held, leading to a series of shootouts and a scheme involving Buford and his men impersonating the staff at a hotel, Shaft hanging from a rope and smashing through a window, and the Mafia guys being sprayed with a fire hose. It’s all very exciting, and it leads to an abrupt ending, since once Shaft has completed his rescue, his work is done, and the ongoing gang war can play out behind him as he walks away.
The real pleasure of this movie is seeing an impossibly cool character move through a milieu of cops, gangsters, and thugs and always stay one step ahead of everyone else. He always has somebody he can get to help him out, whether it’s a hippie guy who he sends to turn the lights on in his apartment to distract the Mafia thugs or a gay bartender who helps him hook up with a sexy white girl. While he’s usually on top of things, he’s not infallible, as we see when he tries to rescue the kidnapped girl mostly on his own and gets injured in a shootout. But he’s tough enough to get back out there after getting bandaged up, and he gets the job done like we always knew he would.
While Tidyman might have complained about the fakeness of the slang in the movie, it all seems pretty cool to me. There’s some great dialogue here and plenty of excellent lines, with Shaft always being ready to drop some knowledge on guys who are trying to intimidate him. In one memorable exchange, when the main cop Shaft interacts with, Lieutenant Androzzi (Charles Cioffi), tries to make it seem like he cares about the violence that might affect people in Harlem, Shaft tells him, “It warms my Black heart to see you so concerned about us minority folks.” Androzzi complains that Shaft is playing the race card, holding up a black pen in front of his face and saying “You ain’t so Black.” Shaft responds by holding a coffee mug in front of Androzzi’s face and saying “You ain’t so white, baby.”
The one thing Shaft does that gives me pause is mess around with a white woman when he’s got a dedicated Black girlfriend (played by Gwenn Mitchell). He gets a somewhat awkward sex scene with Mitchell (it’s in the style of the time, with a montage of sparkly imagery and glimpses of Richard Roundtree’s ass, but it seems kind of cheesy to modern eyes), and they seem close, but when she lets him know that she loves him, he just responds “Yeah, I know.” I supposed he has to maintain his reputation of being a sex machine with ALL the chicks, but I hate to see him throw away something special just to get some action with a girl that the gay bartender describes as having “groovy boobs.”
I would be remiss if I didn’t discuss the music in the movie. It seems to have set the standard for soundtracks of the time, with Isaac Hayes providing plenty of wah-wah guitar that makes for a cool, driving rhythm underscoring the action. In addition to the theme song, there are several other good songs on the soundtrack, including “Soulsville,” which serves as a background to Shaft’s investigations. It’s a great example of the socially-conscious tracks that would feature in many Blaxploitation movies, adding depth to stories that didn’t always focus on the most positive aspects of the Black community.
For anyone interested in Blaxploitation, Shaft is a can’t-miss entry in the genre. Its success definitely paved the way for many similar films, and it also spawned two direct sequels, a series of TV movies, and a reboot decades later. It’s super-cool, with a great central performance, a killer soundtrack, and plenty of excitement. As I watch more of these movies, I’m looking forward to seeing its continuing influence and the ways other filmmakers expanded on its ideas.