Shaft (1971 film)

Shaft
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Gordon Parks
Written by	Ernest Tidyman (novel & screenplay) John D. F. Black
Produced by	Joel Freeman
Starring	Richard Roundtree
Cinematography	Urs Furrer
Edited by	Hugh A. Robertson
Music by	Isaac Hayes J. J. Johnson
Distributed by	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Warner Bros. (DVD)
Release date	July 2, 1971 (1971-07-02)
Running time	100 minutes
Country	Template:Film US
Language	English
Budget	$500,000
Box office	$13 million

Shaft is a 1971 American blaxploitation film directed by Gordon Parks, released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. An action film with elements of film noir, Shaft tells the story of a black private detective, John Shaft, who travels through Harlem and to the Italian mob neighborhoods in order to find the missing daughter of a black mobster. It stars Richard Roundtree as Shaft, Moses Gunn as Bumpy Jonas, Drew Bundini Brown as Willy, Charles Cioffi as Lt. Vic Androzzi, Christopher St. John as Ben Buford, and Gwenn Mitchell and Lawrence Pressman in smaller roles. The movie was adapted by Ernest Tidyman and John D. F. Black from Tidyman's 1971 novel of the same name.

The Shaft soundtrack album, recorded by Isaac Hayes, was also a success, winning a Grammy Award for Best Original Score; the "Theme from Shaft" won the Academy Award for Best Original Song and has appeared on multiple Top 100 lists, including AFI's 100 Years…100 Songs.

In 2000, Shaft, widely considered a prime example of the blaxploitation genre, was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

Plot

Shaft, a private detective, emerges from the New York City subway and walking through Times Square, with scenes characterizing early 1970s New York. Shaft visits a shoeshine parlor, and is informed that some gangsters are looking for him. Police Lt Vic Androzzi meets Shaft outside the parlor; and unsuccessfully tries to get information from him on the two gangsters. After Lt Androzzi leaves, Shaft spots one of the men waiting for him in his office building. He commandeers the first gangster, forcing him into his office where the second gangster is waiting. After a quick fight, Shaft throws one of them out the window; while the other surrenders and reveals to him that Bumpy, the leader of an uptown gang, wanted to meet Shaft and knock him out at his office.

At the police station, Shaft lies to Lt. Androzzi and his superior about the fight by saying that his friend got into an "accident". He is allowed to return to the streets for 48 hours. Shaft arranges a meeting with Bumpy, the leader of these gangsters, in his office. It turns out Bumpy's daughter has been kidnapped, and Shaft is asked to get her back safe. Shaft starts his investigation by looking for a man named Ben Buford, who is revealed to have been part of "the movement" with Shaft years ago, and eventually finds out that Ben's group is holding a meeting. Shaft then returns home to his girlfriend where they make love.

The evening of the meeting, Shaft is tailed by a fingerman to the meeting where an ambush ensues. Shaft and Ben escape from the carnage while Ben's group and the fingerman are murdered by unknown assailants. Ben confronts Shaft, thinking he was set up, but they refrain from fighting and move on.

Shaft is told by Vic after the shooting that Shaft himself was the target, not Ben, and that there are brewing tensions between the "uptown" hoods belonging to Bumpy Jonas and the "downtown" Mafioso, that have culminated in a couple of murders. Vic states those who know, know it's "hood against hood" on the inside, but the perception is black against white to the general public, with the possibility of things escalating into full-blown race war on the streets of the city. He also shows Shaft some pictures of two of the Mafioso men who just got to New York. Vic pleads to Shaft to just clue him in to what's going on, though Vic already knew Bumpy was looking for Shaft.

Shaft and Ben later meet Bumpy at his uptown office where Shaft ups the price for the job, based on his new-found information from Vic. Bumpy states that the reason for turning him on to Ben's is because Shaft is going to need an army to get his daughter back, and "Ben's got one".

Shaft retires to the "No Name Bar", across the street from Shaft's apartment in Greenwich Village. In the bar, he notices two men there who look like the Mafiosi from the pictures Vic showed him, watching Shaft's apartment. Shaft takes over the bar from the bartender, and calls the cops without the two Mafiosi knowing. As the cops arrive to arrest the two men, one of them spits on Shaft's face to which he responds by breaking a bottle of scotch over the man's head.

After spending the night with one of the ladies from the bar, Shaft visits Vic and the two mafioso the following morning. When Shaft returns home, he wakes the woman up, and as she leaves his place, she complains about his rotten manners out of bed, leading to a brief verbal spat.

A few seconds after the woman leaves, Vic comes in echoing the woman's spat to Shaft. Vic tells Shaft that the room that he was in at the station house was bugged and he is supposed to bring him in for questioning, but instead leaves. Ben and Shaft go to the apartment where Marcy Jonas is being held to make sure she's alive. Once there, a gunfight ensues during which two hoods get killed and Shaft takes a bullet in the shoulder. At home where Shaft is getting medical attention from a doctor working underground with him (Shaft refuses to go to any hospital because the hospital will notify police about his gunshot wound.), Shaft tells Ben to round up his men and meet him at the hotel where Marcy has been taken, to prepare to get her back. He also calls Bumpy to tell him that his daughter is fine and he is going to need some taxicabs to meet him at the same hotel for the getaway.

As Shaft plan goes on it resembles a military commando-style operation, Ben's men all dress as workers at the hotel (cooks, waiters, elevator operators, etc.) as to not arouse suspicion during infiltration. Shaft and one of Ben's guys go to the roof and get set up to enter from the window of the room where Marcy is being held captive. Shaft's plan is to cause a distraction with an explosive thrown through the window of Marcy's room while Ben and his men come down the hall and deal with the Mafia men as they leave their rooms.

The rescue plan is successful. Marcy is spirited out of the hotel into one of the waiting taxicabs; as the others get away in the remaining cabs, Shaft walks to a phone booth to call Vic. Shaft tells him his "case just busted wide open", to which Vic tells Shaft to close it for him. Shaft tells Vic that he won't and declares, "I guess you're gonna have to close it yourself ... shitty!" (referring to the earlier spat with his one-night stand when Shaft asked the woman to close the door on the way out, a remark Vic overheard and teases him with), howling in mockingly laughter and walking away as the closing credits begins to roll.

Production

According to Melvin Van Peebles, the original production was of a white detective story, but following the success of Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, the original script was scrapped in favor of an adaptation of Ernest Tidyman's 1970 novel Shaft, which focused on a black detective. However, production of Shaft had begun in January 1971, well before the release of Van Peebles's film, with Roundtree's casting in the title role widely reported. As early as January 5, 1971, The New York Times had reported that the film's 10-week shooting schedule was about to begin, that Roundtree would play the title role, and that Tidyman's book formed the basis for the film.

Tidyman, who was white, was an editor at The New York Times prior to becoming a novelist. He sold the movie rights to Shaft by showing the galley proofs to the studio (the novel had not yet been published). Tidyman was honored by the NAACP for his work on the Shaft movies and books.

Reaction

Box office performance

The film was one of only three profitable movies that year for MGM, grossing what Time magazine called an "astonishing" $13 million on a budget of $500,000. It not only spawned several years of "blaxploitation" action films, it earned enough money to save then-struggling MGM from bankruptcy.

Critical reception

Shaft was well received by film critics and is considered by many as one of the best films of 1971. It currently holds a 90% "Fresh" rating on the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes.

In July 1971, Time magazine called the film a "window-rattling thriller" that's a "fast-moving pleasure" despite "a few too many racial jokes." Roger Ebert gave the film 2½ stars (of a possible four), mentioning issues he had with Parks' direction but pointing out the film "savors the private-eye genre, and takes special delight in wringing new twists out of the traditional relationship between the private eye and the boys down at homicide." In a March 2001 BBCi retrospective, Michael Thomson noted "[t]he film was hammered at the time for not being a full exposé of the black urban experience, and for being just a black version of a '40s Hollywood gumshoe thriller, yet Shaft certainly has a black sensibility ... and, even now, it seems radical to have a movie in which almost all the actors are black. However, the film's violence, to which many objected at the time, will not cause much shock-horror in today's audiences. The attraction to them will be the stylish conversation and attitudes, as well as Richard Roundtree, who lends Shaft the right amount of charisma, swagger and untouchability."

Awards and other honors

Isaac Hayes won the Academy Award for Best Original Song and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song for "Theme from Shaft". In 2004, the song was named the 38th greatest movie song of all time by the American Film Institute. Hayes also won a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score, the Grammy for Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Music, Original Dramatic Score, as well as the BAFTA Award for Best Film Music. The film's score was also selected as a possible candidate for AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores. Richard Roundtree was nominated for the Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer (Male), and he also received an MTV Lifetime Achievement Award for his portrayal in the Shaft Trilogy. The character John Shaft was considered a possible candidate for AFI's 100 Years…100 Heroes and Villains. The film itself was also a candidate for AFI's 100 Years…100 Thrills.

In 2000, Shaft was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". In 2003, Shaft was chosen as one of The 1000 Best Movies Ever Made by The New York Times.

Soundtrack

Main article: Shaft (album)

The soundtrack album for Shaft was released as a double album by Stax Records' Enterprise label. The album consists mostly of instrumentals composed by Isaac Hayes, though three vocal selections are included: "Soulsville", "Do Your Thing", and "Theme from Shaft". The soundtrack became Hayes' best-known work, and the best-selling LP ever released on a Stax label.

The soundtrack was a commercial and critical success, winning a Grammy Award for Best Original Score at the 14th Grammy Awards. The "Theme from Shaft" won the Academy Award for Best Original Song at the 44th Academy Awards and appeared on the Cashbox Top 100 number-one singles, Billboard's Hot 100 number-one singles, and RPM's number-one singles in Canada. According to the American Film Institute, the theme is 38th on AFI's 100 Years…100 Songs list.

Sequels and remakes

Two sequels were made: Shaft's Big Score in 1972, and Shaft in Africa in 1973. These were followed by a short-lived 1973-74 television series titled Shaft on CBS, also starring Roundtree.

In 2000, a new film, Shaft, was made featuring Samuel L. Jackson in the title role. Jackson plays the nephew of Richard Roundtree's character; Roundtree returns as John Shaft, still a private eye, trying to get his nephew to join him.

Pop culture references

Already in 1972, Pam Grier's character in Hit Man starred in a pornographic film she believed was a screen test for Shaft.

In the British gangster film Sexy Beast, Don Logan (played by Ben Kingsley) tells Gal Dove (played by Ray Winstone) that his fake name is "Roundtree, like Smarties, like Shaft."

Television references are numerous. On The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Shaft is the idol of the fictional Will Smith, and several episodes make references to the film. In one episode Will denies that Shaft is a fictional character and claims he is real, parodying how young children deny that the cartoon characters they love are not real. "The Wedding Show (Psyche!)", a fifth season episode, includes a Shaft-themed wedding for Will and his fiancee, Lisa. In The Simpsons episode One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish, Bart and Lisa sing Isaac Hayes' theme song to the film at a karaoke bar.

In the Mystery Science Theater 3000 presentation of Mitchell, Joel and the robots perform a variation of Isaac Hayes' "Shaft" theme during that film's opening credits. In Good Eats, Alton Brown performs a parody of the film's theme song about puff pastry. In the final Father Ted episode "Going to America," the song is played by an elated Ted, perking up a depressive priest in the process.

External links

• Shaft at IMDb
• Shaft at AllMovie