Shaft (1971 film)

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Shaft
Shaft DVD cover
Directed by	Gordon Parks
Produced by	Joel Freeman
Written by	Ernest Tidyman (novel & screenplay) John D.F. Black
Starring	Richard Roundtree
Music by	Isaac Hayes J. J. Johnson
Distributed by	MGM
Release date(s)	July 2, 1971 (USA)
Running time	100 min.
Language	English
Followed by	Shaft's Big Score Shaft in Africa
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Shaft is a 1971 film. Used as a model for blaxploitation films, it has elements of film noir. It tells the story of a black private detective, John Shaft, who travels through Harlem and to the Italian mob in order to find the missing daughter of a black mobster. It stars Richard Roundtree as Shaft, Moses Gunn, Charles Cioffi, Christopher St. John, Gwenn Mitchell and Lawrence Pressman. The movie was adapted by Ernest Tidyman and John D. F. Black from Tidyman's 1971 novel of the same name. It was directed by Gordon Parks.

1 Box office and Academy Awards
2 Sweetback connection
3 Ernest Tidyman
4 Sequels
5 National Film Registry
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Box office and Academy Awards

The film was a box-office success, grossing $12 million. The budget was $1,125,000. It won an Academy Award for Best Music, Song for Isaac Hayes for "Theme from Shaft". It was nominated for Best Music, Original Dramatic Score.

[edit] Sweetback connection

According to one version of events, Shaft was originally written as just another detective movie, with a white detective in the lead, but, after the success of Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971), the film was rewritten and recast as a blaxploitation movie. This story has been recounted many times by "Sweetback" writer-director Melvin Van Peebles^[1], who claims that he read the original Shaft script before the movie went into production; however, Van Peebles' story seems doubtful, since Tidyman's novel (the basis for the film) is about a black detective, not a white one.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Ernest Tidyman

Ernest Tidyman, who was 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.

[edit] Sequels

Two sequels were made: Shaft's Big Score in 1972, and Shaft in Africa in 1973. These were followed by a series of TV movies starring Roundtree as Shaft on CBS during the 1973-1974 TV season.

In 2000, a sequel was made featuring Samuel L. Jackson in the title role (see Shaft (2000 movie)). Jackson plays the nephew of Richard Roundtree's character; Roundtree returns as John Shaft, still a private eye, trying to get his nephew to join him.

[edit] National Film Registry

In 2000, the United States Library of Congress deemed the original film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.