Shaft

This movie starring Richard Roundree as a black private detective named John Shaft is considered the forebear to the blaxploitation films that became prevalent in the seventies.

In the movie Roundtree plays the aforementioned Shaft as a cool beyond cool detective in Harlem. With a working relationship with a homicide detective named Vic Shaft is connected enough in the white police force to get a tip when he needs it. As the movie develops we see Shaft get put in the middle of a black gangster whose daughter has been kidnapped by some Italian mobsters who are concerned that the girl's father, Bumpy played by Moses Gunn, is encroaching on their territories.

The movie is much better than I expected. Shaft is cool, he is dated but that is ok. He is a womanizer and the love scenes were, one assumes for 1971 racy, and in the case of his being joined in the shower by a white woman he picked up in a bar, controversial. The story moves along quickly and is with that pace easy to follow.

The soundtrack has become as famous as the movie itself. Isaac Hayes won an Oscar for Theme from Shaft. Even today it is a song that reverberates cool.

Dated. Yes. This movie is clearly dated. What it wrought in terms of even more over the top black themed movies was not a good thing. As the original or most influential of it's type though this is a very strong movie. Roundtree actually did not get enough credit for how strong his performance was.