Shaft is a 1971 American blaxploitation crime action thriller film directed by Gordon Parks and written by Ernest Tidyman and John D. F. Black. It is an adaptation of Tidyman's novel of the same name and is the first entry in the Shaft film series. The plot revolves around a private detective named John Shaft who is hired by a Harlem mobster to rescue his daughter from the Italian mobsters who kidnapped her. The film stars Richard Roundtree as Shaft, alongside Moses Gunn, Charles Cioffi, Christopher St. John and Lawrence Pressman.
Ernest Ralph Tidyman was an American author and screenwriter, best known for his novels featuring the African-American detective John Shaft. His screenplay for The French Connection garnered him an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, as well as a Golden Globe Award, a Writers Guild of America Award, and an Edgar Award. In 1971, he also co-wrote the screenplay for the film version of Shaft with John D. F. Black.
Joseph Peter Mascolo was an American musician and dramatic actor. During his long career, he acted in numerous motion pictures and television series. He played villain Stefano DiMera on NBC's soap opera Days of Our Lives from 1982 to 2016. He also starred as Massimo Marone on the CBS' soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful from 2001 to 2006.
Shaft is a 2000 American action crime thriller film co-written, co-produced, and directed by John Singleton and starring Samuel L. Jackson in the title role with Vanessa Williams, Jeffrey Wright, Christian Bale, Dan Hedaya, Busta Rhymes, Toni Collette and Richard Roundtree. It is a sequel to the 1971 Shaft film, in which Jackson plays the nephew of John Shaft. The film opened at the number-one position at the box office when it debuted June 16, 2000. It received mixed to positive reviews on Metacritic, with the critical consensus on Rotten Tomatoes praises Jackson's charisma.
Richard Arnold Roundtree was an American actor. He was best known for his portrayal of private detective John Shaft in the 1971 film Shaft and four of its sequels, Shaft's Big Score! (1972), Shaft in Africa (1973), its 2000 sequel and its 2019 sequel, as well as the eponymous television series (1973–1974). He was also known for featuring in several TV series, including Roots, Generations, and Desperate Housewives.
John Shaft is a fictional private investigator created by author/screenwriter Ernest Tidyman for the 1970 novel of the same name. He was portrayed by Richard Roundtree in the original 1971 film and in its four sequels—Shaft's Big Score!, Shaft in Africa, Shaft (2000) and Shaft (2019)—as well as in the seven 1973–74 Shaft television films. Samuel L. Jackson portrayed his son, named John Shaft II, in Shaft (2000) and Shaft (2019), and Jessie Usher portrayed the character's grandson in Shaft (2019). The blurb on the paperback on which the original film is based states Shaft is "Hotter than Bond, cooler than Bullitt."
Ellsworth Raymond "Bumpy" Johnson was an American crime boss in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City.
Shaft in Africa is a 1973 American blaxploitation film directed by John Guillermin, and the third film of the Shaft series, starring Richard Roundtree as John Shaft. Stirling Silliphant wrote the screenplay. The film's budget was $1.5 million, but the film was a box office flop, grossing just $1 million. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer quickly sold the property to television, but the television series was cancelled after just seven episodes.
Moses Gunn was an American actor of stage and screen. An Obie Award-winning stage player, he is an alumnus of the Negro Ensemble Company. His 1962 off-Broadway debut was in Jean Genet's The Blacks, and his Broadway debut was in A Hand is on the Gate, an evening of African-American poetry. He was nominated for the 1976 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his performance in The Poison Tree, and he also played Othello on Broadway in 1970. For his screen performances, Gunn is best known for his roles as Clotho in WUSA (1970), Bumpy Jonas in Shaft (1971) and Joe Kagan on Little House on the Prairie (1977–1981).
Shaft is a television series that aired along with Hawkins during 1973–74 television season on The New CBS Tuesday Night Movies. Broadcast every third week, the series is a follow-up continuation of the three feature films that preceded its release. Starring Richard Roundtree as private detective John Shaft, it serves as the fourth installment overall in the Shaft franchise. Ed Barth costars as Al Rossi.
Shaft is a double album by Isaac Hayes, recorded for Stax Records' Enterprise label as the soundtrack LP for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's 1971 blaxploitation film Shaft. The album mostly consists of instrumentals composed by Hayes as score for the film. Three vocal selections are included: "Soulsville", "Do Your Thing", and "Theme from Shaft". A commercial and critical success, Shaft is Hayes' best-known work and the best-selling LP ever released on a Stax label.
"Theme from Shaft", written and recorded by Isaac Hayes in 1971, is the soul and funk-styled theme song to the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film Shaft. The theme was released as a single two months after the movie's soundtrack by Stax Records' Enterprise label. "Theme from Shaft" went to number two on the Billboard Soul Singles chart and to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States in November 1971, and number one in Canada in December. The song was also well received by adult audiences, reaching number six on Billboard's Easy Listening chart and number four in Canada. The song is considered by some to be one of the first disco songs.
Drew Bundini Brown was an American assistant trainer and cornerman of heavyweight champion boxer Muhammad Ali.
Living in a Big Way is a 1947 American musical comedy film starring Gene Kelly, Marie McDonald as a couple who marry during World War II after only knowing each other a short time. This was director Gregory La Cava's final film.
Brigadoon is a 1954 American Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical film made in CinemaScope and color by Ansco based on the 1947 Broadway musical of the same name by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe. The film was directed by Vincente Minnelli and stars Gene Kelly, Van Johnson, and Cyd Charisse. Brigadoon has been broadcast on American television and is available in VHS, DVD and Blu-ray formats.
Blaxploitation is an ethnic subgenre of the exploitation film that emerged in the United States during the early 1970s, when the combined momentum of the civil rights movement, the black power movement, and the Black Panthers spurred African-American artists to reclaim the power of depiction of their ethnicity, and institutions like UCLA to provide financial assistance for African-American students to study filmmaking. This combined with Hollywood adopting a less restrictive rating system in 1968. The term, a portmanteau of the words "black" and "exploitation", was coined in August 1972 by Junius Griffin, the president of the Beverly Hills–Hollywood NAACP branch. He claimed the genre was "proliferating offenses" to the black community in its perpetuation of stereotypes often involved in crime. After the race films of the 1940s and 1960s, the genre emerged as one of the first in which black characters and communities were protagonists, rather than sidekicks, supportive characters, or victims of brutality. The genre's inception coincides with the rethinking of race relations in the 1970s.
The New CBS Tuesday Night Movies was a weekly 90-minute motion picture made expressly for television. The series aired on CBS from 1971 to 1974. During its first two seasons, the program was similar to ABC's Movie of the Week, which presented a brand-new full-length feature film in a regular weekly time slot with no connecting theme or arc among the films. In the fall of 1972, the series moved from Friday nights to Tuesdays, with its Friday night slot given back to traditional previously released theatrical films under The CBS Friday Night Movies banner.
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.
Shaft is a 2019 American action comedy film directed by Tim Story and written by Kenya Barris and Alex Barnow. The film stars Samuel L. Jackson, Jessie T. Usher, Regina Hall, and Richard Roundtree. It is the fifth film in the Shaft series, a sequel to the 2000 film with the same title and was also Roundtree's final portrayal of the original eponymous character John Shaft Sr. before his death in 2023.
The Shaft franchise consists of five action-crime feature films and seven television films, centered on a family of African-American police detectives who all share the name John Shaft. The first three features may be described as blaxploitation films, the television film series is a mystery, and the fourth feature installment is a crime thriller. By contrast the fifth film installment, released to Netflix, is a satirical buddy-cop comedy.
