Enter the Dragon is a 1973 martial arts film directed by Robert Clouse and written by Michael Allin. The film stars Bruce Lee, John Saxon, Ahna Capri, Bob Wall, Shih Kien and Jim Kelly. Enter the Dragon was Bruce Lee's final completed film appearance before his death on 20 July 1973 at the age of 32. An American-Hong Kong co-production, the film was premiered in Los Angeles on 19 August 1973, one month after Lee's death.
Benjamin Sherman "Scatman" Crothers was an American actor and musician. He is known for playing Louie the Garbage Man on the TV show Chico and the Man, and Dick Hallorann in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980). He was also a prolific voice-over actor who provided the voices of Meadowlark Lemon in the Harlem Globetrotters animated TV series, Jazz the Autobot in The Transformers and The Transformers: The Movie (1986), the title character in Hong Kong Phooey, and Scat Cat in the Disney animated film The Aristocats (1970).
Count Juan Raphael Dante was an American martial artist figure during the 1960s and 1970s who claimed he could do extraordinary feats such as Dim Mak.
Game of Death is an incomplete Hong Kong martial arts film, of which portions were filmed between September and October 1972, and was planned and scheduled to be released by 1973, directed, written, produced by and starring Bruce Lee. The project was paused to film and produce Enter the Dragon. For Game of Death, over 120 minutes of footage was shot. The remaining footage has since been released with Lee's original Cantonese and English dialogue, with John Little dubbing Lee's Hai Tien character as part of the documentary titled Bruce Lee: A Warrior's Journey. Much of the footage that was shot is from what was to be the climax of the film.
Gloria Hendry is an American actress and former model. Hendry is best known for her roles in films from the 1970s, most notably: portraying Rosie Carver in 1973's James Bond film Live and Let Die; and Helen Bradley in the blaxploitation film Black Caesar, and the sequel, Hell Up in Harlem.
James Milton Kelly was an American athlete, martial artist, and actor. After winning several karate championships, Kelly rose to fame in the early 1970s appearing in various action films within the martial arts and blaxploitation genres. Kelly played opposite Bruce Lee in 1973's Enter the Dragon, and had lead roles in 1974's Black Belt Jones as the title character and Three the Hard Way as Mister Keyes.
Coonskin is a 1975 American live-action/animated satirical crime film written and directed by Ralph Bakshi. The film references the Uncle Remus folk tales, and satirizes the blaxploitation film genre as well as Disney's film Song of the South, adapted from the Uncle Remus folk tales. The film's narrative concerns three anthropomorphic Uncle Remus characters, Br'er Rabbit, referred to as Brother Rabbit, Br'er Fox, referred to as Preacher Fox, and Br'er Bear, referred to as Brother Bear. They rise to the top of the organized crime racket in Harlem, encountering corrupt law enforcement, con artists, and the Mafia, in a satire of both racism within the Hollywood film system, and America itself. The film stars Philip Thomas, Charles Gordone, Barry White, and Scatman Crothers, all of whom appear in both live-action and animated sequences.
BaadAsssss Cinema is a 2002 TV documentary film directed by Isaac Julien. Julien looks at the Blaxploitation era of the 1970s in this hour-long documentary.
Mel Novak is an American actor who is best known for villainous roles in Black Belt Jones, Game of Death, and An Eye for an Eye. He is also known for doing all of his own stunts and fighting scenes.
Truck Turner, also known as Black Bullet, is a 1974 American blaxploitation film, starring Isaac Hayes and Yaphet Kotto, and directed by Jonathan Kaplan. The screenplay was written by Michael Allin, Leigh Chapman, and Oscar Williams. Hayes also scored the music for the soundtrack. The film was released by American International Pictures as a double feature with Foxy Brown.
Black Caesar is a 1973 American blaxploitation crime drama film written and directed by Larry Cohen and starring Fred Williamson, Gloria Hendry and Julius Harris. It features a musical score by James Brown, his first experience with writing music for film. A sequel titled Hell Up in Harlem was released in late 1973.
Ron Van Clief is an American martial artist and an actor in Hollywood and Hong Kong action films. He is best known for starring in 1970s blaxploitation and kung fu films. He is the father of poet Shihan van Clief. He also founded the "Chinese Goju System" in 1973.
Richard Norton is an Australian martial artist, actor, stunt performer, stunt coordinator, security consultant, and fight choreographer. He holds a 5th dan black belt in Gōjū-ryū karate, a 6th dan black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, an 8th dan black belt in Chun Kuk Do, and a level 6 ranking in American kickboxing. After high school, Norton worked as a bodyguard in the entertainment business before pursuing an acting career.
Deadly Eyes is a 1982 Canadian horror film directed by Robert Clouse, very loosely based on the 1974 horror novel The Rats by James Herbert. The story revolves around giant black rats who begin eating the residents of Toronto after ingesting contaminated grain.
Robert Clouse was an American film director and producer, known primarily for his work in the action/adventure and martial arts genres. He died on February 4, 1997, in Oregon of kidney failure.
In US cinema, Blaxploitation is the film subgenre of action movie derived from the exploitation film genre in the early 1970s, consequent to the combined cultural momentum of the Black civil rights movement, the black power movement, and the Black Panther Party, political and sociological circumstances that facilitated Black artists reclaiming their power of the Representation of the Black ethnic identity in the arts. The term blaxploitation is a portmanteau of the words Black and exploitation, coined by Junius Griffin, president of the Beverly Hills–Hollywood branch of the NAACP in 1972. In criticizing the Hollywood portrayal of the multiracial society of the US, Griffin said that the blaxploitation genre was "proliferating offenses" to and against the Black community, by perpetuating racist stereotypes of inherent criminality.
Jerry Smith is a former professional full-contact fighting coach, as well as co-founder of the Black Karate Federation (BKF) and founder of The Five-Level Method/Shorin-Ju Kenpo.
Slaughter's Big Rip-Off is a 1973 blaxploitation film directed by Gordon Douglas and written by Charles Eric Johnson. The film stars Jim Brown, Ed McMahon, Don Stroud, Brock Peters, Gloria Hendry and Dick Anthony Williams. The film was released on August 31, 1973, by American International Pictures. It is the sequel to the 1972 film Slaughter.
One Down, Two to Go is a 1982 American blaxploitation action drama film written and directed by Fred Williamson and starring Williamson, Jim Brown, Richard Roundtree and Jim Kelly. This is the third film to star Williamson, Brown, and Kelly, following Three the Hard Way and Take a Hard Ride. Williamson, Brown, and Roundtree would reunite nearly fifteen years later in Original Gangstas.
Rosalind Miles was an American film and television actress and fashion model. Miles was most known for her roles in film during the early to late 1970s. Miles appeared in mostly American blaxploitation films such as; Shaft's Big Score!, The Black Six and Friday Foster.
