June 25, 1971: "Shaft" Premieres

June 25, 1971: Shaft premieres, based on the novel by Ernest Tidyman. Tidyman and established television writer John D.F. Black, both white, wrote the script, and Gordon Parks, then known as one of the finest black photographers, directed.

It wasn't the 1st exploitation film with African-American lead actors: Melvin van Peebles had directed, co-produced, wrote and starred in Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (usually publicized as Sweet Sweetback), premiering on March 31. But Shaft did become the defining film of the "blaxploitation" genre.

Issac Hayes composed the soundtrack, and his performance of the title song hit Number 1, won him 2 Grammy Awards, and made him the 1st black person to win the Academy Award for Original Song. Can you dig it?

Richard Roundtree plays John Shaft, a Harlem-based private detective. Moses Gunn plays Bumpy Jonas, the local crime boss. (His name was clearly taken from the real-life Ellsworth "Bumpy" Johnson, who had died, apparently from an ordinary heart attack, in 1968, and who's had multiple films made about him.) Jonas' daughter Marcy (Sherri Brewer) has been kidnapped, and he wants Shaft to bring her back alive.

This leads Shaft into a gang war between Jonas and New York's Italian Mafia "Five Families." A police ally of Shaft's, Lieutenant Vic Androzzi, tells him he's worried that this will blow up into a full-scale race war. With the assistance of local militant leader Ben Buford (Christopher St. John) and his men, Shaft frees Marcy and gets her, and himself, out alive.

Androzzi was played by Charles Cioffi, who played a similar character in the TV series Get Christie Love! Antonio Fargas had a minor role, which led to him being cast as Huggy Bear on the TV series Starsky & Hutch. Drew Bundini Brown, Muhammad Ali's cornerman, had a minor role in the film.

Shaft was 1 of only 3 movies released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1971 to make a profit. It made Roundtree "the 1st black action hero," and led to the rise of blaxploitation films. Over the 1970s, football star Jim Brown got in on the genre, and Fred "The Hammer" Williamson, Bernie Casey and Carl Weathers became better known as actors than they were as football players. Pam Grier, in Coffy and Foxy Brown, Tamara Dobson, in Cleopatra Jones, and Teresa Graves on Get Christie Love! showed that the women starring in such films could be just as tough as the men.

Tidyman wrote 6 Shaft novel sequels, including Goodbye, Mr. Shaft and Shaft's Carnival of Killers. Roundtree starred in 2 quick sequels, Shaft's Big Score! in 1972 and Shaft in Africa in 1973, but neither did well. CBS aired a Shaft TV series in 1973-74, in which Roundtree starred in 7 90-minute TV-movies, but it didn't get renewed for a 2nd season.

In 2000, a sequel was made, titled Shaft, starring Samuel L. Jackson, whose film career simply would not have been possible without the original film. Jackson plays a New York police detective named John Shaft, with Roundtree playing the original as his uncle. In 2019, another Shaft film was released. In this one, the characters played by Roundtree and Jackson are definitively father and son, now both private investigators, while Jessie T. Usher plays the grandson, J.J. Shaft, an FBI computer analyst. Neither sequel did well at the box office.

Left to right: Jessie T. Usher, Samuel L. Jackson, Richard Roundtree

Ernest Tidyman died in 1984, Drew Bundini Brown in 1987, Moses Gunn in 1993, Gordon Parks in 2006, John D.F. Black in 2018. As of June 25, 2022, Richard Roundtree, Charles Cioffi, Christopher St. John, Antonio Fargas and Sherri Brewer are still alive. (UPDATE: Roundtree died on October 24, 2023.)

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June 25, 1971 was a Friday. These Major League Baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees beat the Washington Senators, 12-2 at Yankee Stadium. Steve Kline went the distance for the win. Ron Blomberg and Jake Gibbs hit home runs.

* The New York Mets swept a doubleheader from the Montreal Expos, 4-1 and 4-2 at Jarry Park in Montreal. Nolan Ryan won the opener, Danny Frisella the nightcap.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 14-4 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Steve Blass outpitched Jim Bunning. Roberto Clemente did not play, but the Bucs got a home run from Willie Stargell, and 2 each from Jackie Hernández and Richie Hebner.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Boston Red Sox, 7-3 at Fenway Park in Boston. The O's scored 4 runs in the top of the 9th inning to win it. Frank Robinson and Boog Powell hit home runs. Brooks Robinson went 1-for-5. Carl Yastrzemski went 1-for-3 with an RBI.

* The Atlanta Braves swept a doubleheader from the Cincinnati Reds, 8-6 and 10-3 at Atlanta Stadium (later Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium). Over the 2 games, Pete Rose went 3-for-7 with 2 walks and 3 RBIs, Johnny Bench went 3-for-9 with a home run and an RBI, and Tony Perez went 7-for-9 with a solo home run in each game. Hank Aaron did not play in either game.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Cleveland Indians, 6-1 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. Al Kaline hit a home run as a pinch-hitter. Willie Horton also homered for the Tigers.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the California Angels, 2-0 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Tommy John pitched 8 innings of 6-hit shutout ball, with Bart Johnson pitching a perfect 9th.

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Minnesota Twins, 3-1 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. Harmon Killebrew went 0-for-3 with a walk. Rod Carew went 1-for-4 with an RBI.

* The Chicago Cubs beat their arch-rivals, the St. Louis Cardinals, 12-0 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis. The Cubs scored 10 runs in the top of the 7th inning. Ernie Banks, in his final season, did not play. But Billy Williams, Glenn Beckert, Brock Davis and J.C. Martin each had 3 hits. Lou Brock went 3-for-5 for the Cards.

* The Houston Astros beat the San Francisco Giants, 5-4 at the Astrodome in Houston. Gaylord Perry took a 4-3 lead into the bottom of the 9th, but gave up a single to Denis Menke, made an error on Doug Rader's comebacker, and walked Johnny Edwards intentionally to set up plays at any base. But he threw a wild pitch that scored Menke with the tying run, and gave up a single to Jack Hiatt that scored Rader with the winning run. Willie Mays went 0-for-4 with a walk.

* The San Diego Padres beat their arch-rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers, 5-4 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.

* And the Oakland Athletics beat the Kansas City Royals, 7-0 at the Oakland Coliseum. Vida Blue, in the middle of his greatest season, pitched a 5-hit, 1-walk, 12-strikeout shutout, to raise his record to 16-2. Reggie Jackson went 1-for-3 with a walk and an RBI.