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.
Pamela Suzette Grier is an American actress and singer. Described by Quentin Tarantino as cinema's first female action star, she achieved fame for her starring roles in a string of 1970s action, blaxploitation and women in prison films for American International Pictures and New World Pictures. Her accolades include nominations for an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Satellite Award and a Saturn Award.
Shaft's Big Score! is a 1972 American blaxploitation action-crime film starring Richard Roundtree as private detective John Shaft. It is the second entry in the Shaft film series, with both director Gordon Parks and screenwriter Ernest Tidyman reprising their roles from the first film. Moses Gunn and Drew Bundini Brown also return from the previous film, alongside new appearances from acting veterans Joseph Mascolo, Julius Harris and Joe Santos. Composer Isaac Hayes turned down an offer to score the film, so Parks, also a musician, composed and performed the score himself.
Foxy Brown is a 1974 American blaxploitation film written and directed by Jack Hill. It stars Pam Grier as the title character who takes on a gang of drug dealers who murdered her boyfriend. The film was released by American International Pictures as a double feature with Truck Turner. The film uses Afrocentric references in clothing and hair. Grier starred in six blaxploitation films for American International Pictures.
Coffy is a 1973 American blaxploitation film written and directed by Jack Hill. The story is about a black female vigilante played by Pam Grier who seeks violent revenge against a heroin dealer responsible for her sister's addiction.
Blacula is a 1972 American blaxploitation vampire horror film directed by William Crain. It stars William Marshall in the title role about an 18th-century African prince named Mamuwalde, who is turned into a vampire by Count Dracula in the Count's castle in Transylvania in the year 1780 after Dracula refuses to help Mamuwalde suppress the slave trade.
The Thing with Two Heads is a 1972 American blaxploitation science fiction comedy film directed by Lee Frost and starring Ray Milland, Rosey Grier, Don Marshall, Roger Perry, Kathy Baumann, and Chelsea Brown.
The Payback is the 37th studio album by American musician James Brown. The album was released in December 1973, by Polydor Records. It was originally scheduled to become the soundtrack for the blaxploitation film Hell Up in Harlem, but was rejected by the film's producers, who dismissed it as "the same old James Brown stuff." A widely repeated story—including by Brown himself—that director Larry Cohen rejected the music as "not funky enough" is denied by Cohen. On the DVD commentary track for Black Caesar, Cohen states that executives at American International Pictures were already unhappy with Brown for delivering songs much longer than expected on Black Caesar and Slaughter's Big Rip-Off and opted for a deal with Motown Records instead. Cohen said the absence of Brown's music from Harlem still "breaks [his] heart."
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.
Abraham Laboriel López Sr. is a Mexican-American bassist who has played on over 4,000 recordings and soundtracks. Guitar Player magazine called him "the most widely used session bassist of our time". Laboriel is the father of drummer Abe Laboriel Jr. and of producer, songwriter, and film composer Mateo Laboriel.
Scream Blacula Scream is a 1973 American blaxploitation vampire horror film. It is a sequel to the 1972 film Blacula. The film was produced by American International Pictures (AIP) and Power Productions. This was the acting debut of Richard Lawson.
Sugar Hill is a 1974 American horror blaxploitation zombie film, directed by Paul Maslansky and starring Marki Bey as the title character who uses voodoo to get revenge on the people responsible for her boyfriend's death. It was released by American International Pictures. According to the film, the zombies are the preserved bodies of slaves brought to the United States from Guinea. AIP had previously combined the horror and blaxploitation genres with Blacula (1972) and its sequel Scream Blacula Scream (1973).
The outlaw biker film is a film genre that portrays its characters as motorcycle riding rebels. The characters are usually members of an outlaw motorcycle club.
Carolyn Ann Stewart, known professionally as Carol Speed, was an American actress, singer-songwriter and author. Speed was best known for her roles in films during the 1970s blaxploitation era, most notably starring as Abby Williams in the American International Pictures 1974 blaxploitation horror film Abby (1974).
Blaxploitation is an ethnic subgenre of the exploitation film that emerged in the United States during the early 1970s, after the demand of the Black Panthers for black artists to reclaim the power and rights to their image from the UCLA, and the new rating system within Hollywood allowed up and coming black film makers and actors to create black films for black audiences. 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.
Hollywood Man is a 1976 American film directed by Jack Starrett. The film was featured in the 1997 Quentin Tarantino Film Festival.
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.
"Sexy, Sexy, Sexy" is a 1973 song written and recorded by James Brown, for the film Slaughter's Big Rip-Off. The song appeared on the film's soundtrack and was released as a single in 1973. The song, and wider album, emerged from an era which saw the rise of Blaxploitation films. Such films represented the struggle of African Americans against poverty and crime under a white-dominated society. While Sexy, Sexy, Sexy was received well by contemporary and modern audiences alike, it received negative reviews from critics. Brown used the same backing track and chord progression from his 1966 hit Money Won't Change You when composing the song, which prompted such a poor critical response. Despite Brown's Plagiarism of his earlier work, Sexy, Sexy, Sexy showcased the typical funk hallmarks of his more popular work. The song performed strongly on three separate Billboard charts as well as the Cashbox chart. It appeared in three separate releases under music label Polydor Records and reissued in 2020.
Night of the Strangler is a 1972 American blaxploitation mystery film directed by Joy N. Houck Jr. and starring Micky Dolenz and James Ralston. It depicts the story of Denise Roberts and her plans to enter into an interracial marriage with her baby's father; these plans are disrupted by his murder, which begins an escalating series of killings involving her brothers Vance (Dolenz) and Dan (Ralston) and their loved ones.
