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.
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.
Across 110th Street is a 1972 American action-crime film directed by Barry Shear and starring Yaphet Kotto, Anthony Quinn, Anthony Franciosa and Paul Benjamin. The film is set in Harlem, New York and takes its name from 110th Street, the traditional dividing line between Harlem and Central Park that functioned as an informal boundary of race and class in 1970s New York City.
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."
Telefon is a 1977 spy film directed by Don Siegel and starring Charles Bronson, Lee Remick and Donald Pleasence. The screenplay by Peter Hyams and Stirling Silliphant is based on the 1975 novel by Walter Wager.
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.
Stirling Dale Silliphant was an American screenwriter and producer. He is best remembered for his screenplay for In the Heat of the Night, for which he won an Academy Award in 1967, and for creating the television series Naked City, Perry Mason, and Route 66. Other features as screenwriter include the Irwin Allen productions The Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure.
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.
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.
Marlowe is a 1969 American neo-noir film starring James Garner as Raymond Chandler's private detective Philip Marlowe. Directed by Paul Bogart, the film was written by Stirling Silliphant based on Chandler's 1949 novel The Little Sister.
Vonetta Lawrence McGee was an American actress. She debuted in the Spaghetti Western The Great Silence and went on to appear in blaxploitation films such as Hammer, Melinda, Blacula, Shaft in Africa, Detroit 9000, and 1974's Thomasine & Bushrod alongside her then-boyfriend Max Julien. In 1975, she was Clint Eastwood's co-star in The Eiger Sanction. She was a regular on the 1987 Universal Television situation comedy Bustin' Loose, starring as Mimi Shaw for its only season (1987–88).
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 black artists to reclaim power over their image, and institutions like UCLA to provide financial assistance for students of color 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.
El Condor is a 1970 American Western film directed by John Guillermin.
John Guillermin was a French-British film director, writer and producer who was most active in big-budget, action-adventure films throughout his lengthy career.
Blaxploitation horror films are a genre of horror films involving mostly black actors. In 1972 director William Crain did the first blaxploitation horror film, Blacula.
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.
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.
Tony Owen was an American agent and producer, who was married to Donna Reed.
