Shaft (1971 movie)

Shaft is a 1971 blaxploitation film which tells the story of a a detective who fights the black mob, and then the white mob. It stars Richard Roundtree, 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 the novel by Tidyman. It was directed by Gordon Parks.

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.

Shaft was followed by two movie sequels:

• Shaft's Big Score (1972)
• Shaft in Africa (1973)

and a television series:

• Shaft

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

Quotations

Shaft's girlfriend: "You got problems, baby?"

Shaft: "Yeah, I got a couple of 'em. I was born black and I was born poor."