Shaft

SHAFT (1971) – 55TH Anniversary Screening - Special Introduction by film music historian Jon Burlingame February 17, 7:00 pm at Laemmle’s Royal

Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series celebrate Black History Month with the 55th anniversary of SHAFT, the groundbreaking crime action thriller that helped launch the Blaxploitation genre in the 1970s. The Oscar-winner (best song for Isaac Hayes) will screen one night only February 17 at 7:00 pm at the historic Royal Theatre in West Los Angeles. Our guest commentator is author and film music historian Jon Burlingame, who will share his expertise on the film’s impact.

Shaft was adapted for the screen by prior Oscar-winner Ernest Tidyman (The French Connection) from his novel, along with screenwriter John D.F. Black, and directed by multi-talented filmmaker Gordon Parks, who was a renowned photographer for Life magazine, novelist, and composer before he made his autobiographical debut film, The Learning Tree in 1968. That film was an artistic but not a commercial success. In response, Parks turned to the crime genre for his second feature, Shaft, a low-budget detective story that showcased a Black leading man, (changed from the novel’s white gumshoe), the relatively unknown Richard Roundtree as independent detective John Shaft. The story involves a Harlen crime boss (Moses Gunn) hiring Shaft to rescue his daughter from alleged Mafia kidnappers. During his pursuit, Shaft enlists the aid of a white cop (Charles Cioffi), Black revolutionaries, and true to the song’s lyrics was “the private dick who’s a sex machine to all the chicks.”

Black audiences responded exuberantly to the first real Black action hero on the screen after decades of white protagonists in crime movies, making Shaft a surprise box office smash, particularly in urban areas. Among critics of the day Vincent Canby in The New York Times appreciated it as a “flamboyant, tough-talking tale of black privilege,” with Roger Ebert stating, “John Shaft, played by Richard Roundtree, belongs in the honorable tradition pf Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade, Lew Archer and company.” The new African American publication Essence magazine, which arrived on the scene in 1970, called Shaft “the first picture to show a black man who leads a life free of racial torment. He is black and proud of it, but nor obsessed with it…”

Shaft’s resounding commercial success was also due to the noteworthy musical contribution by Isaac Hayes, a composer and recording artist who aspired to play the title character, but after Roundtree won the role, agreed to score the film. The film’s soundtrack has been hailed as a “funk/soul masterpiece,” and the “Theme from Shaft” soared to the top of the pop and soul charts, won the Oscar (with a memorable live performance by Hayes at the Academy Awards), the first for a Black composer, and won two Grammys. The movie became a franchise, spawning two sequels and two remakes, in 2000 and 2019 for successive generations. It was also included in the National Film Registry in 2000. Gordon Parks recalled later that in addition to making an entertaining “Saturday night movie,” he had hoped to inspire young African Americans by giving them a “hero they hadn’t had before.” His landmark film achieved its goal.

Jon Burlingame is the nation’s leading expert on the music for film and television. In addition to his five acclaimed books on those subjects, he has written numerous articles for The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and other publications. Other endeavors include chapters for other books and essays for home media. He is an adjunct professor at USC and has twice won ASCAP’s Deems Taylor award for outstanding music journalism among other accolades.