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 franchise. 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.
The film explores themes including masculinity and sexuality, with a specific emphasis on Black Power. It was filmed in Harlem, Greenwich Village, and Times Square within the Manhattan borough of New York City. The Shaft soundtrack album, recorded by Isaac Hayes, was also a success, winning a Grammy Award for Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture and a second Grammy (shared with Johnny Allen) for Best Instrumental Arrangement. The "Theme from Shaft" won the Academy Award for Best Original Song, making Hayes the first Black man to win the award for that category. The song has appeared on multiple Top 100 lists, including AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs.
A prime example of the blaxploitation genre, it was selected in 2000 for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." Shaft initially had two sequels called Shaft's Big Score! (1972) and Shaft in Africa (1973), though neither enjoyed the critical success of the original.
Plot
In January 1971, private investigator John Shaft is informed that some gangsters are looking for him. He spots one of the men waiting for him in his office building and ambushes him. At gunpoint, he brings him to his office, where the second gangster is already waiting. During a short fight, Shaft dodges one of them, who falls out of a window. The other one reveals that Bumpy Jonas, the leader of a Harlem-based organized crime family, wants Shaft brought uptown to Harlem for a meeting. At the police station, Lieutenant Vic Androzzi and a detective question Shaft about the gangster's death, which Shaft calls an "accident". Androzzi allows Shaft to return to the streets for 48 hours to gather more information. Shaft meets with Bumpy, who tearfully reveals that his daughter has been kidnapped. Shaft is at first dismissive, accusing her of being a runaway or on drugs, until Jonas says she was on her way to college when she got abducted. He asks Shaft to ensure her safe return, and Shaft agrees to help. Bumpy advises that Shaft should seek out Ben Buford, a black militant leader.
Shaft tracks down Buford, and a shootout ensues with an unknown assailant. Afterward, Shaft is told by Androzzi that Shaft, not Ben, was the target, and that tensions brewing between the uptown hoods belonging to Bumpy Jonas and the downtown Mafiosi have culminated in other murders. Androzzi laments that the issue is seen as black-against-white to the general public and worries about the escalation into a full-blown race war. He also shows Shaft some pictures of Mafia men who just arrived in New York. Shaft and Ben meet with Bumpy and accuse him of setting up the shootout. After Bumpy agrees to pay $10,000 for each of Ben's men who died, Ben and Shaft join forces to find Bumpy's daughter.
Later, Shaft surmises that mobsters are watching his apartment from a local bar. Shaft pretends to be a bartender and calls Androzzi to have the mobsters arrested. Shaft then confronts the arrested mobsters about Bumpy's daughter, and he sets up a meeting. When he gets home, Vic arrives and tells Shaft that the room at the station house was bugged and his superior wants to bring Shaft in for questioning regarding the kidnapping. Instead of taking him in, Androzzi leaves. Shaft is escorted by a Mafia member to the apartment where Marcy Jonas is being held, and Ben and two of his men tail them. Once there, a shootout ensues: two Mafia men are killed, and Shaft takes a bullet in the shoulder. After receiving medical attention, Shaft tells Ben to round up his men and meet him at the hotel where Marcy has been taken. He calls Bumpy to tell him his daughter is fine, but that he needs taxicabs at the hotel for the getaway.
At the hotel, Shaft, Ben, and Ben's men dress as hotel workers and slowly infiltrate the hotel. Shaft gets to the roof of the hotel, and swings into the room where Marcy is kept. He kills the gangster guarding her and brings her outside. Meanwhile, Ben and his men kill the gangsters in the surrounding rooms, and exit. After the taxicabs take Marcy, Ben, and Ben's men away, Shaft calls Androzzi from a phone booth, telling him that his case has just busted open. When Androzzi asks him to close it, Shaft tells him to close it himself, hangs up the phone, and walks away laughing.
Cast
Background
Shaft was adapted from Ernest Tidyman's novels by Tidyman and screenwriter John D. F. Black. Joel Freeman and executive producers Stirling Silliphant and Roger Lewis produced the film.
The screen detective genre in the late 1960s had been dominant in major movies with big stars attached. Paul Newman had established his Harper in 1966, (he reprised the character in 1975, in The Drowning Pool). Soon following, Frank Sinatra's Tony Rome (1967), The Detective (1968), and Lady in Cement (1968) further set the quality. Industry knowledge suggested that the first of the Clint Eastwood Dirty Harry productions was also slated for a 1971 release.
Seeing that his directorial debut of a major entertainment production was set to be compared to these previous productions, Gordon Parks realized that a bold casting choice was necessary for Shaft.
Although black in the source novel, Tidyman's original draft screenplay had Shaft as white. However, [Gordon] Parks cast African American actor Richard Roundtree as the eponymous hero. The entire dynamic of the film, its later success, and the future of blaxploitation films were all greatly impacted by Parks' decision. This film was created less to impact black consciousness and more to simply to show a fun film', which people could attend on Saturday night and see a black guy winning." Nevertheless, Parks said in the documentary about his work, Half Past Autumn (2000), that he had hoped the film would inspire young African Americans by presenting them with "a hero they hadn't had before." Shaft was intentionally created to "appeal to a black urban audience, along with contiguous white youths."
After production, in an effort to entice a large black audience to see the film, MGM hired UniWorld, a black advertising firm, who "popularized Shaft by using the rhetoric of black power."
Production
Melvin Van Peebles claimed that the success of his film Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song caused Shaft to be changed from a "white movie" into a "black one". In fact, filming of Shaft began in January 1971, several months before the release of Van Peebles' film, with Roundtree already confirmed in the lead role. The story is set in the same month, as shown by a calendar on Shaft's office wall.
Tidyman, who is white, was an editor at The New York Times prior to becoming a novelist. He sold the movie rights to Shaft by showing the galley proofs to the studio (the novel had not yet been published). Tidyman was honored by the NAACP for his work on the Shaft movies and books.
Themes
Portrayal of race
Shaft played a crucial part in the development of African-American advancement in Hollywood.
In the creation of Shaft, there was a significant African-American presence, with director Parks, editor Hugh A. Robertson, and composer Isaac Hayes playing crucial roles. On the other hand, white men controlled the other important aspects of Shafts production. Scenarist and writer Tidyman, writer Black, producer Freeman, and executive producers Silliphant and Lewis
Parks' decision to cast Roundtree rather than a white actor, for whom the role was written, instantly altered the presentation of race in the film. Commenting on the film shortly after its release, New York Times movie critic Vincent Canby accurately predicted the wave of blaxploitation films to follow: "How audiences react, however, has a great deal to do with the kind of movies that do get made, and having watched the extraordinary receptions given to both Sweet Sweetback and Shaft I'm led to wonder if, perhaps, the existence of what seems to be a large, hungry, Black movie audience—an audience whose experiences and interests are treated mostly in token fashion by TV—might not be one of the more healthy and exciting developments on the current movie scene." Shaft greatly impacted future blaxploitation films which "crudely tried to emulate the success of Shaft and Sweetback, repeated, filled in, or exaggerated the ingredients of the Blaxploitation formula, which usually consisted of a pimp, gangster, or their baleful female counterparts, violently acting out a revenge or retribution motif against corrupt whites in the romanticized confines of the ghetto or inner city."
Reception
Box office performance
The film was one of only three profitable movies that year for MGM, grossing what Time magazine called an "astonishing" $13 million on a budget of $500,000.
The Los Angeles Times said the film cost $1 million after advertising and other costs and grossed $4.5 million. According to Variety by 1976 it earned $7.656 million in theatrical rentals.
It not only spawned several years of "blaxploitation" action films, it earned enough money to save then-struggling MGM from bankruptcy.
Public reception
Shaft was extremely successful in theaters, which was a huge accomplishment for the then-struggling MGM studios. It was produced at a cost of $1.2 million while earning $10.8 million in its first year of distribution, Gene Siskel awarded two stars out of four and wrote that the film "offers little more than a rousing opening fight and a chance to see Roundtree glower while he models some fancy leather outfits." Variety wrote that the film was "directed by Gordon Parks with a subtle feel for both the grit and the humanity of the script. Excellent cast, headed by newcomer Richard Roundtree, may shock some audiences with a heavy dose of candid dialog and situation." Vincent Canby of The New York Times called it "the first good Saturday night movie I've seen in years ... 'Shaft' is not a great film, but it's very entertaining." In a review for The Monthly Film Bulletin, Nigel Andrews called it "in the main a highly workmanlike and enjoyable thriller." Gary Arnold of The Washington Post called it "a diverting commercial thriller, inconsequential but slick and casually enjoyable."
Other critics like Clayton Riley mainly found fault in the films' failure to "deal with Black life in serious terms," Riley also harshly stated, "Mediocre is the only word to describe the work of Gordon Parks, the director of this nonsense, inept is the kindest thing to say about the performances of Richard Roundtree as John Shaft, a Black private eye on the prowl for kicks in the Big Apple underworld."
Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 88% based on 49 reviews from critics, with an average rating of 7.5/10. The website's "Critics Consensus" quotes the movie's opening song: "This is the man that would risk his neck for his brother, man. Can you dig it?"
Awards and nominations
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders"
|-
! Award
! Category
! Nominee(s)
! Result
! Ref.
|-
| rowspan="2"| Academy Awards
| Best Original Dramatic Score
| Isaac Hayes
|
| align="center" rowspan="2"|
|-
| Best Song – Original for the Picture
| "Theme from Shaft" <br> Music and Lyrics by Isaac Hayes
|
|-
| British Academy Film Awards
| Best Original Music
| rowspan="2"| Isaac Hayes
|
| align="center"|
|-
| rowspan="3"| Golden Globe Awards
| Best Original Score – Motion Picture
|
| align="center" rowspan="3"|
|-
| Best Original Song – Motion Picture
| "Theme from Shaft" <br> Music and Lyrics by Isaac Hayes
|
|-
| Most Promising Newcomer – Male
| Richard Roundtree
|
|-
| rowspan="7"| Grammy Awards
| Album of the Year
| Shaft – Isaac Hayes
|
| align="center" rowspan="7"|
|-
| Record of the Year
| "Theme from Shaft" – Isaac Hayes
|
|-
| Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Group
| "Theme from Shaft" (Instrumental) – Isaac Hayes
|
|-
| Best Instrumental Arrangement
| "Theme from Shaft" – Isaac Hayes and Johnny Allen
|
|-
| Best Instrumental Composition
| "Theme from Shaft" – Isaac Hayes
|
|-
| Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or a Television Special
| Shaft – Isaac Hayes
|
|-
| Best Engineered Recording – Non-Classical
| "Theme from Shaft" – Henry Bush, Ron Capone, and Dave Purple
|
|-
| MTV Movie Awards
| Lifetime Achievement Award
| Richard Roundtree
|
| align="center"|
|-
| rowspan="2"| NAACP Image Awards
| rowspan="2"| Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture
| Moses Gunn
|
| align="center" rowspan="2"|
|-
| Richard Roundtree
|
|-
| National Film Preservation Board
| colspan="2"| National Film Registry
|
| align="center"|
|}
In 2000, Shaft was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
In 2003, Shaft was chosen as one of The 1000 Best Movies Ever Made by The New York Times.
American Film Institute Lists
- AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs
- Theme From Shaft – #38
==Soundtrack==<!-- do not rename section without also updating forward reference in introduction -->
One of the greatest factors contributing to Shafts wild success and lasting appeal is its memorable musical score, "a revolutionary funk/soul masterpiece". Hayes auditioned for the role of Shaft but was asked to compose the musical score instead.
Hayes' soundtrack was recognized for its unique and catchy sound. "Instead of laying out a series of lengthy, chilled-out raps and jams, the episodic nature of a movie structure obliged him to focus on shorter instrumentals, featuring laid-back, jazz-infused riffs and solos." "The Shaft theme became so popular that it was heard everywhere, from nightclubs to halftime at football games." (Guerrero 1993) Hayes was also nominated for two Academy Awards for Best Original Dramatic Score and for Best Original Song with the 'Theme from Shaft.'. The Criterion Collection released the film on Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray in June 2022, featuring a 4K restoration.
Sequels
Shaft initially had two sequels called Shaft's Big Score! (1972) and Shaft in Africa (1973), with "neither capturing the soul of the original", according to author Howard Hughes. In July 2015, The Hollywood Reporter reported that Kenya Barris and Alex Barnow would be writing the script, Davis and Ira Napoliello would be producing, and Richard Brener and Samuel J. Brown would direct. The Hollywood Reporter wrote that the film "will have a comedic tone but will retain its action roots". When he was asked about that characterization of the film, Davis said "It's drama, but it's going to be drama with a lot of fun moments. A lot of lighter moments." In January 2017, Deadline reports that Tim Story will direct the film, a sequel, which will follows the son of John Shaft. In August 2017, it was revealed that Richard Roundtree and Samuel L. Jackson would reprise their roles from the 2000 film, and Jessie T. Usher would portray J. J. Shaft, the son of Jackson's character. Roundtree's character would no longer be the uncle, but Jackson's character's father John Shaft Sr. In November 2017, the film was revealed to be titled Shaft. It was released on June 14, 2019.
See also
- List of American films of 1971
- List of cult films