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City Hunter is an action comedy film directed by Yûichi Satô from a screenplay by Tsukasa Hôjô and Tatsuro Mishima. Based on a popular manga series of the same name by Tsukasa Hojo, the Netflix film follows the story of a private investigator as he teams up with his late partner’s sister to solve his mysterious murder which is connected to a deadly conspiracy. So, if you loved the style, humor, action, and philandering ways of Ryo Saeba in City Hunter, here are some similar films you could watch next.

City Hunter Credit – Golden Harvest

31 years before Suzuki Ryohei took on the role of the philandering Ryo Saeba, the legendary Jackie Chan also starred as the main character in another adaptation of the popular manga by Tsukasa Hojo. Directed by Jing Wong, the 1993 film follows the story of a lustful private investigator who is searching for a missing girl...

Richard Roundtree, famous for his role as John Shaft, passed away at 81 after battling pancreatic cancer. He leaves behind an enduring legacy. Before his iconic role, Roundtree started as a model and participated in theater. He continued to star in various Shaft movies and other notable shows and movies. Roundtree's passing is a big loss to the entertainment industry. Tributes have poured in, highlighting his importance and influence.

Shaft actor Richard Roundtree has passed away at the age of 81. The award-winning actor who starred in numerous television and movie roles across his illustrious career that spanned about five decades, was born on July 9, 1942. His professional acting career kicked off around 1963, but he didn’t rise to prominence until 1971 when he took on the titular role of detective John Shaft in Gordon Park’s blaxploitation crime thriller.

According to Deadline, Roundtree reportedly passed away on the afternoon of Oct. 24, after a...

Richard Roundtree, who starred as the memorable detective in 1971’s Shaft, died Tuesday. He was 81.

“Richard’s work and career served as a turning point for African American leading men in film,” Patrick McMinn, who was his manager since 1987, said in a statement. He told the Hollywood Reporter that the actor died at his Los Angeles home of pancreatic cancer.

Samuel L. Jackson, who portrayed John Shaft’s (Roundtree) nephew in the 2000 sequel to Gordon Park’s 1971 action film, shared a tribute to Instagram following the news of his death.

Richard Roundtree, the suave star of the Shaft movies who has long been called the first Black action hero, has died at the age of 81 after a brief battle with pancreatic cancer. Roundtree died in his Los Angeles home with his family by his side on Tuesday, October 24, per Deadline. His manager since 1987, Patrick McMinn, said “Richard’s work and career served as a turning point for African American leading men in film,” in a statement to Variety. “The impact he had on the industry cannot be overstated.” Roundtree’s signature role was playing private eye John Shaft in Shaft (1971) and its follow-ups, Shaft’s Big Score! (1972), Shaft in Africa (1973), and the short-lived Shaft TV series (1973). Roundtree’s first screen credit was in As the World Turns in 1956. He broke ground for representation in Hollywood as Shaft‘s leading man at the age of 28. Directed by Gordon Parks and based...

Richard Roundtree, the ultracool actor who helped open the door to a generation of Black filmmakers and performers with his portrayal of private eye John Shaft, “the cat that won’t cop out when there’s danger all about,” died Tuesday. He was 81.

Roundtree died at his home in Los Angeles of pancreatic cancer, his manager, Patrick McMinn, told The Hollywood Reporter.

He was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1993 and had a double mastectomy. “Breast cancer is not gender specific,” he said four years later. “And men have this cavalier attitude about health issues. I got such positive feedback because I spoke out about it, and it’s been quite a number of years now. I’m a survivor.”

Roundtree also portrayed the title character opposite Peter O’Toole as Robinson Crusoe in Man Friday, was featured as an army sergeant opposite Laurence Olivier as Gen. Douglas MacArthur in the Korean...

First cinematographer Owen Roizman passed away at 86 in January, and now director William Friedkin has left us at 87 on August 7. But their legacy as New Hollywood mavericks of the ’70s will continue to influence and inspire generations of filmmakers. That’s because their legendary back-to-back partnership on the Oscar-winning New York crime thriller “The French Connection” (1971) and the blockbuster horror film “The Exorcist” (1973) helped define that decade’s uneasy look of docu-realism.

The duo creatively connected instantly on “The French Connection,” which starred Gene Hackman as rogue cop Popeye Doyle, trying to stop a heroin smuggling deal while fighting a corrupt police force. Friedkin was able to leverage his documentary experience for the first time in his fledgling directing career, while Roizman broke free from his glossy TV commercial roots.

“The French Connection” elevated the cop genre with its art-house style (inspired by “Z”) and relentless pace. It also featured...

What would Hollywood be without a good ole Blaxploitation film? And now that “They Cloned Tyrone” has hit Netflix screens, conversations about the Blaxploitation movies that crawled so that “They Cloned Tyrone” could pimp walk have come to the forefront.

Juel Taylor’s film welcomes watchers to The Glen, a normal, everyday neighborhood where its predominately Black residents live out their lives shopping, going to church and enjoying the fruits of their labor. However, beneath the surface, but right in front of their eyes, the government is executing a plot to keep the community in an endless cycle of unhealthy behavior that ultimately blocks them from mental and financial wellness.

Like many Blaxploitation films, “They Cloned Tyrone” creatively calls out and highlights the systemic issues Black community faces while also celebrating Black culture and Black people’s perseverance.

When “They Cloned Tyrone” hit Netflix, people online began discussing the films that influenced it,...

Clint Eastwood knew his way around a Western by the time he took it upon himself to direct one in 1973. "High Plains Drifter" is the follow-up to his filmmaking debut, "Play Misty for Me," and, on the surface it appeared that the actor was giving his audience what they wanted. Eastwood stars as a man with no name who rides into a mining town seeking protection from a pair of outlaw families that killed their sheriff. This might sound like a retread of "A Fistful of Dollars," but Ernest Tidyman's screenplay quickly veers from the formula. When the Stranger accepts the gig, he quickly takes advantage of the townspeople. He abuses two women, installs a bullied little person as the mayor and sheriff, and takes over the village's only hotel.

The difference in "High Plains Drifter" is that the townspeople are anything but innocent. They hired the outlaws to murder the sheriff,...

Five Oscars went to William Friedkin’s dynamic NYPD saga based on the exploits of detective Eddie Egan, who envisioned himself being played by Rod Taylor. Instead, Gene Hackman leapt to stardom in the role. The Department, annoyed by scripter Ernest Tidyman’s portrayal of the force, canned Egan seven hours before he was to sign his retirement papers!

The post The French Connection appeared first on Trailers From Hell.

Richard Roundtree’s two-fisted detective tale burst on the scene announcing that a craze called Blaxploitation was on the way. No matter that the movie is somewhat slow and drab — John Shaft was the identification figure denied black audiences for 60 years, a hero who takes no guff from nobody and consistently tells The Man where to head in. Even bigger was the music theme by Isaac Hayes, which transforms Shaft’s casual stroll through Times Square into an iconic image of the 1970s. Criterion’s presentation of Gordon Parks’ smash hit has the original feature in 4K Uhd and in Blu-ray with the first sequel Shaft’s Big Score! in Blu-ray only.

Shaft

4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 1130

1971 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 100 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date June 21, 2022 / 39.95

Starring: Richard Roundtree, Moses Gunn, Charles Cioffi, Christopher St. John, Gwenn Mitchell, Lawrence Pressman, Victor Arnold, Sherri Brewer,...

This week marks the 50th anniversary of director William Friedkin's 1971 crime thriller "The French Connection." It is considered to be one of the best films ever made and won multiple Oscars including Best Picture, Best Actor (Gene Hackman), Best Director, Best Film Editing, and Best Adapted Screenplay (Ernest Tidyman). The story follows NYPD detectives Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle (Hackman) and Buddy "Cloudy" Russo (Roy Scheider) in pursuit of a wealthy French heroin smuggler named Alain "Frog One" Charnier (played by Fernando Rey). In an interview with The New York Post, Hackman and Friedkin detail the iconic guerrilla filmmaking and the car chase scene...

The post William Friedkin Admits the Famous French Connection Car Chase 'Put People's Lives in Danger' appeared first on /Film.

Though there were vestiges of traditional Hollywood in 1971 with the releases of big musical “Fiddler on the Roof” and “Bedknobs and Broomsticks” and an extravagant, albeit old-fashioned, historical epic “Nicholas & Alexander,” it was the untraditional fare that dominated the year with such films as Stanley Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange,” Alan J. Pakula’s “Klute,” Gordon Parks’ “Shaft” and John Schlesinger’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday.”

Two of the most lauded and influential films of the 1970s made their debuts 50 years ago and earned places in Oscars history: Peter Bogdanovich’s black-and-white study of a dying Texas town “The Last Picture Show” and William Friedkin’s pulsating crime thriller “The French Connection.”

Both directors had made movies before, but these productions made them critics darlings and each film changed the careers of their stars. “The French Connection’ won five Academy Awards including Best Picture, director, and actor for Gene Hackman. “The Last Picture Show...

As Gordon Parks’ blaxploitation classic “Shaft,” released nationwide on July 2, 1971, celebrates its 50th anniversary, a proper revision of its ethos is overdue. An anachronistic “Shaft” that promotes an outmoded 007 brand of masculine toxicity — an obsession with shiny possessions including cars, clothing, guns, and of course, women, while relishing violence as the most innate means to an end — may not quite cut it anymore.

That doesn’t mean the character should be neutered; but a post-Trump, post-George Floyd “Shaft” should intrigue executives in an industry that loves to exploit known IP, especially as it contends with an uncertain, rapidly evolving environment. The world does not need a Black James Bond right now; it needs a “Shaft,” updated to clash head-on with a backdrop that isn’t all that different from the era that led to a proliferation of movies like it.

For years, Idris Elba has had to react to...

Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, which turns 50 this month, is the opposite of the definition imposed on it. The 1971 film inspired the Blaxploitation genre, but Melvin Van Peebles exploited no one but himself. He got the money together, wrote the script and the music, selected the shots, aimed the camera, and starred in the film. He even did the stunts and post-production editing. Everything that came after was a reaction to his revolution. The father of Black cinema is one of the godfathers of independent filmmaking, and he turned everything upside down doing it.

Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song defies all expectations. Unapologetically Black, it flips every stereotype back on itself. It reconstructs the constrictions of sexual identification. It wasn’t made for the institution. It was made for the people. “This film is dedicated to all the Brothers and Sisters who had enough of the Man,” reads the opening titles. That...

Gordon Parks and Ernest Tidyman transformed the action film with this charismatic, Chandleresque Brooklyn private eye played by Richard Roundtree, the spiritual father to Foxy Brown, Cotton, The Hammer and many others. One of the first and slickest of the “blaxploitation” films, it was followed by two sequels, a TV series, a recent remake/spin-off starring Samuel L. Jackson (with a Roundtree cameo), and in the summer of 2019 a follow-up to that remake/spin-off featuring Jackson, Roundtree and Jessie T. Usher as three generations of Shaft men. Isaac Hayes’ title song won the Oscar.

The post Shaft appeared first on Trailers From Hell.

Cinema Retro's Todd Garbarini with Sonny Grosso at a screening of The French Connection in 2010.

By Todd Garbarini

Salvatore Anthony Grosso, known affectionately as Sonny Grosso, passed away on Wednesday, January 22, 2020 at the age of 89. If his name doesn’t ring a bell, his work most assuredly did. Mr. Grosso was originally a New York City police detective who was the partner of Detective Eddie Egan. These two gentlemen both, on a hunch, broke up an organized crime ring which resulted in the seizure of 112 pounds of heroin. This then-unprecedented bust in 1961 provided the basis for the 1969 Robin Moore chronicle of their exploits, The French Connection, and was made into the Oscar-winning classic film of the same name two years later, resulting in a Best Picture win for producer Philip D’Antoni, Best Director for William Friedkin, Best Actor for Gene Hackman (he personified Eddie Egan’s Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle...

New Line Cinema’s action comedy “Shaft” is the next chapter in the film franchise featuring the coolest private eye on any New York City block. Tim Story (the “Ride Along” and “Think Like a Man” franchises) directs this all-new take on a legend, starring Oscar nominee Samuel L. Jackson, Jessie T. Usher, Regina Hall, Alexandra Shipp, Matt Lauria, Titus Welliver, Cliff “Method Man” Smith, and Richard Roundtree, the original John Shaft.

Jj, aka John Shaft Jr. (Usher), may be a cyber security expert with a degree from MIT, but to uncover the truth behind his best friend’s untimely death, he needs an education only his dad can provide. Absent throughout Jj’s youth, the legendary locked-and-loaded John Shaft (Jackson) agrees to help his progeny navigate Harlem’s heroin-infested underbelly. And while Jj’s own FBI analyst’s badge may clash with his dad’s trademark leather duster, there’s no denying family.

Shaft’s Big Score! / Shaft in Africa

Blu ray

Warner Archive

1972, 1973 / 2.35 : 1 / 104, 112 Min.

Starring Richard Roundtree, Vonetta McGee, Frank Finley

Directed by Gordon Parks, John Guillermin

Released in 1971 during a notoriously divisive presidential campaign, Shaft was both a middle finger to the powers that be and a sexually charged Black Power taunt – a combination that convulsed 42nd Street audiences while scaring the bejesus out of your average Nixon voter.

For that grindhouse crowd, Richard Roundtree, not Nixon, was The One and his portrayal of the street-smart detective reached far beyond The Deuce – director Gordon Parks’ film cost only $500,000 but brought in 13 million at the box office. Sequels were just around the corner.

A year later Shaft’s Big Score! reunited Parks, Roundtree and screenwriter Ernest Tidyman while quadrupling the budget in the bargain – the streets are still mean but the volatile mood swings that made the 1971 film a cultural touchstone...

Gordon Parks and Ernest Tidyman transformed the action film with this charismatic, Chandleresque Brooklyn private eye played by Richard Roundtree, the spiritual father to Foxy Brown, Cotton, The Hammer and many others. One of the first and slickest of the “blaxploitation” films, it was followed by two sequels, a TV series, a recent remake/spin-off starring Samuel L. Jackson (with a Roundtree cameo), and in the summer of 2019 an upcoming follow-up to that remake/spin-off featuring Jackson, Roundtree and Jessie T. Usher as three generations of Shaft men. Isaac Hayes’ title song won the Oscar.

The post Shaft appeared first on Trailers From Hell.

There’s a new trailer for the next chapter in the Shaft film franchise and includes three generations of the coolest private eye of New York City…can ya dig it?

In the trailer for the New Line Cinema action comedy we are re-introduced to John Shaft II (Samuel L. Jackson), who was in the movie from 2000. We are also introduced to his son John Shaft Jr. (Jessie T. Usher)…who is not as slick as his pops. And as an added bonus the original John Shaft (Richard Roundtree) is folded into the mix. As seen in the trailer, familial hilarity ensues in the Tim Story-directed movie written by Kenya Barris and Alex Barnow.

The movie follows Jj, aka John Shaft Jr. He may be a cyber security expert with a degree from MIT, but to uncover the truth behind his best friend’s untimely death, he needs an...

© 2019 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. Photo Credit: Kyle Kaplan (L-r) Alexandra Shipp as Sasha, Jesse Usher as John “Jj” Shaft, Samuel Jackson as John Shaft and Richard Roundtree as John Shaft, Sr. in New Line Cinema’s action comedy “Shaft,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release.

Warner Bros. Pictures has released two photos from the upcoming movie Shaft.

New Line Cinema’s action comedy is the next chapter in the film franchise featuring the coolest private eye on any New York City block. Shaft is set for release on June 14, 2019

Tim Story (the “Ride Along” and “Think Like a Man” franchises) directs this all-new take on a legend, starring Oscar nominee Samuel L. Jackson, Jessie T. Usher, Regina Hall, Alexandra Shipp, Matt Lauria, Titus Welliver, Cliff “Method Man” Smith, and Richard Roundtree, the original John Shaft.

Jj, aka John Shaft Jr. (Usher), may be a cyber security expert with a degree from MIT,...

On this week's Trailers from Hell, Boston novelist Dennis Lehane ("Gone Baby Gone," "Mystic River") narrates the trailer to William Friedkin's visceral New York actioner "The French Connection," which won five Oscars including Best Picture. Based on the exploits of NYPD detective Eddie Egan, who envisioned himself being played by Rod Taylor, the movie gave Gene Hackman his breakthrough role. The Department, annoyed by screenwriter Ernest Tidyman's portrayal of the force, canned Egan seven hours before he was to sign his retirement papers! Lehane sees Egan as driven by anger to bring down rich criminals living the high life.

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More Best Picture Oscar winners have had sequels than you may think. This lot, in fact...

There’s still an element of snobbery where sequels to certain films is concerned. Whereas it’s now almost compulsory to greenlight a blockbuster with a view of a franchise in mind, it’s hard to think of most Best Picture Oscar winners being made with a follow-up in mind. Yet in perhaps a surprising number of cases, a sequel – or in the case of Rocky, lots of sequels – have followed.

These cases, in fact…

All Quiet On The Western Front (1930)

Followed by: The Road Back

Don’t be fooled into thinking sequels for prestigious movies are a relatively new phenomenon. Lewis Milestone’s 1930 war epic All Quiet On The Western Front, and its brutal account of World War I, is still regarded as something of a classic. A solid box office success,...

By Hank Reineke

In the interest of full disclosure, I’ll admit up front that Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir’s character, Remo Williams (aka “The Destroyer”) has played a small, but significant role in my life.

My older sister had been a high-school friend of one of the author’s daughters. Though the passing of time has made the chronology of events a bit hazy, I’m guessing it was through that friendship that I was first introduced to Warren Murphy’s teenage son. It was the son who – upon learning I was a big fan of his father’s pulp-paperback novels – graciously gifted me a personally autographed copy of The Destroyer #3: Chinese Puzzle (1972). This now-tattered paperback proudly sits on my book shelf to this very day. This, I guess, would have been about 1978. I was seventeen years old. I’m fifty-four now and admit I hadn’t...

David Walker is not happy with news about the upcoming second reboot of "Shaft".

Walker is the writer of Dynamite Entertainment's "Shaft" comic series and the recent novel "Shaft's Revenge," the first official and authorized "Shaft" novel in court decades.

Today he posted an open letter on his website objected to reports from earlier this week which indicated New Line is developing a reboot of the blaxploitation hero with Kenya Barris and Alex Barnow penning the script.

Specifically he's not happy that the new version is said to take the franchise in a more comedic direction, saying that the studio is "more interested in sh--ting the bed, than making a good Shaft movie" and that the film will be a flop that will "ruin the chances of there ever being a decent Shaft movie in the remainder of my lifetime."

Walker says a comedic "Shaft" will essentially just be...

The news that New Line is developing a reboot of Blaxploitation hero Shaft with Black-ish creator Kenya Barris and Alex Barnow writing was met with some mixed reaction when it broke Tuesday.

David Walker — writer of Dynamite Entertainment's Shaft comic book as well as this year's Shaft's Revenge, the first official Shaft novel in four decades authorized by creator Ernest Tidyman's estate — called the move a poor decision.

In an open letter published on his website, Walker (who also currently writes Cyborg for DC Entertainment) wrote that the decision to push Shaft in a comedic direction shows that the studio is "more interested in shitting ...

The news that New Line is developing a reboot of Blaxploitation hero Shaft with Black-ish creator Kenya Barris and Alex Barnow writing was met with some mixed reaction when it broke Tuesday.

David Walker — writer of Dynamite Entertainment's Shaft comic book as well as this year's Shaft's Revenge, the first official Shaft novel in four decades authorized by creator Ernest Tidyman's estate — called the move a poor decision.

In an open letter published on his website, Walker (who also currently writes Cyborg for DC Entertainment) wrote that the decision to push Shaft in a comedic direction shows that the studio is "more interested in shitting ...

Another forgotten gem from the mid-1970s receiving a new Blu-ray treatment is 1975’s Report to the Commissioner, a textured police procedural examining changing social mores and the generalized internal corruptions we’re used to in these scenarios, resulting in tragic circumstances thanks to the sincere ignorance of its protagonist. Yaphet Kotto, a regular supporting player in a number of Blaxploitation features from the decade, is a standout as a weary, sympathetic detective numbed by the machinations of law enforcement. It’s a greatly overlooked title of the era, featuring a variety of recognizable names in early roles as street hoods, and based on a novel by James Mills (The Panic in Needle Park, 1971), adapted for the screen by Abby Mann (Judgment at Nuremberg, 1961) and Ernest Tidyman (Shaft; The French Connection, both 1971). Though its narrative is, at times, a bit rough around the edges, this deliberately paced thriller features rich characterizations and excellent chase sequences.

The Wrap is reporting that New Line Cinema has acquired rights to the "Shaft" franchise with plans of developing a new film. It's not clear if it will be a reboot or a loose continuation. The original film is based on the 1970 novel by Ernest Tidyman. It was released in 1971 with Gordon Parks directing and Richard Roundtree playing the lead role, Detective John Shaft. The film spawned two sequels, "Shaft's Big Score" in 1972 and "Shaft in Africa" in 1973. Roundtree also played Shaft in a short-lived CBS TV series. Then in 2000, the actor returned for a cameo in the "Shaft" reboot, which was directed by John Singleton and starred Samuel L. Jackson as Shaft's nephew. The film cost $46 million to make and grossed $107 million worldwide. A new actor is expected to star as Shaft in the new version.

Tony Sokol Feb 7, 2019

There's a new Shaft movie on the way, starring Samuel L. Jackson and Richard Roundtree, and the first trailer is here!

Who's the black private dick that's a sex machine to all the chicks? Shaft! Damn right and New Line is bringing the man that would risk his neck for his brother man back to the big screen. Shaft is gonna be made again. Can ya dig it? Richard Roundtree is returning to the title that made him a screen icon, but not as the lead. The upcoming reboot of Shaft will star Samuel L. Jackson, Jesse T. Usher, and Alexandra Shipp.

Tim Story, who directed Barbershop, Fantastic Four, Fantastic Four 2: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Ride Along and Kevin Hart: What Now?, will helm New Line’s Shaft reboot. The screenplay for the new Shaft is written by Kenya Barris (creator of Black-ish) and...

We examine the real story behind The French Connection, and look at how police procedural flicks were never the same afterward.

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The French Connection is a seminal work in cop movies. It was that first sniff that hooked the moviegoing public on Hollywood’s war on drugs. It changed the look and the dynamic of law enforcement on film by focusing on the worn heels and tires of street-level surveillance. The movie should be boring with all that waiting around and stealthy shadowing, but the pacing and the performances keep it moving at a breakneck pace comparable to chasing a subway. The French Connection is probably the closest Hollywood has come to a true on-the-street crime procedural in a blockbuster. Things that are cliché in cop movies now were invented here.

The French Connection screeched into theaters in 1971. It was directed by William Friedkin, produced by Philip D'Antoni,...

We examine the real story behind The French Connection, and look at how police procedural flicks were never the same afterwards...

Culture

The French Connection is a seminal work in cop movies. It was that first sniff that hooked the moviegoing public on Hollywood’s war on drugs. It changed the look and the dynamic of law enforcement on film by focusing on the worn heels and tires of street-level surveillance. The movie should be boring with all that waiting around and stealthy shadowing, but the pacing and the performances keep it moving at a breakneck pace comparable to chasing a subway. The French Connection is probably the closest Hollywood has come to a true on-the-street crime procedural in a blockbuster. Things that are clichés in cop movies now were invented here.

The French Connection screeched into theaters in 1971. It was directed by William Friedkin, produced by Philip D'Antoni and...

Dynamite Entertainment has announced a deal to publish Shaft.

The publisher will bring the private eye to the page with comics and graphic novels, reports Comic Vine

Dynamite will also be releasing prose novels as well as gaining the rights to re-print all existing Shaft books.

John Shaft was introduced in Gordon Parks's 1971 blaxploitation film Shaft and has featured in four feature films and seven novels written by Ernest Tidyman.

"The literary craftsmanship that built John Shaft sent him into the world fully formed and moving," said Steve Kasdin, literary agent for the Tidyman estate.

"You knew who and what he was from Jump Street. So much so that even a less than stellar sequel or two didn't kill his standing. The consensus seemed to be: 'Oh my Lord, they done put poor Shaft in another bad movie'.

"I'm thrilled with Dynamite's vision for Shaft, and look forward to his new adventures.

After all the debates, controversies, and stereotype accusations have cleared, looking back on Blaxploitation cinema today it’s easy to see healthy portions of the crime and action genres. Using these genres and the struggles of the black community, these films were created for those that wanted to see African American characters on the big screen not taking shit from the man, “getting over”, and–above all else—being the heroes in movies. In the documentary Baad Asssss Cinema, Samuel L. Jackson gives his take on the heroes of Blaxploitation: “We were tired of seeing the righteous black man. And all of a sudden we had guys who were…us. Or guys who did the things we wanted those guys to do.”

The unsung supporting players in these films that backed Fred Williamson and Pam Grier and many other stars were people acting and making a living off of it.

I looked for him, but he was gone. I checked the boozy dives and the greasy spoons and the street corners where the not-nice girls hang out.

Nothing.

He was gone.

Tall guy, fedora, trench coat. You must’ve seen him. Usually smoking. He was always hanging around, poking his nose where it didn’t belong and usually getting it punched.

A real wisenheimer, too, always cracking wise.

You see him, you call. And if I find out you’ve been holding back…

If you don’t miss that kind of patois, you’re either too young to remember it, or you’ve got a tin ear. God knows, I miss it.

Back in May, some of you might remember I interviewed Road to Perdition author Max Allan Collins (http://www.soundonsight.org/max-allan-collins-road-to-perdition-on-carrying-on-mickey-spillanes-legacy/). A lot of the discussion had to do with his connection with one of the giants of private eye fiction,...

A Force Of One

Stars: Chuck Norris, Clu Gulager, Jennifer O’Neill, Ron O’Neal, Bill Wallace, James Whitmore Jr., Eric Laneuville | Written by Pat E. Johnson, Ernest Tidyman | Directed by Paul Aaron

This week is sees a double-bill of Chuck Norris releases with The Octagon and now A Force of One. Chuck Norris again plays a Martial Arts expert, this time focusing more on karate so none of the mysterious and unknown art of the ninja (sarcasm of course). The question is will the spooky whispering be back or will this one be taken more seriously, and will he sound less like a serial killer.

In A Force of One Chuck Norris plays Matt Logan a karate champion and teacher of the martial art. When an undercover narcotics force finds itself being eliminated by an assassin while searching the source of a drugs problem they look for help from Logan.

As happened for so many other genres, the 1960s/1970s saw a tremendous creative expansion in crime and cop thrillers. The old Hollywood moguls had died off or retired, most of the major studios were bleeding red ink, attendance had gone off a cliff since the end of Ww II, and a new breed of young, creatively adventurous production executives had been tasked with trying to save their business by coming up with movies which could hook a new, young, cinema-literate audience.

It also happened to be one of the most socially turbulent times in American history. Even before the American public grew restive over the growing disaster in Vietnam, the social fabric was unraveling with self-examination and doubt. The Cold War; a certain inner emptiness that went with a period of great material prosperity; once invisible fault lines on matters of race and gender discrimination beginning to crack – all...

With the Oscars nearly here, Glen looks back to the 70s, and argues that it was the decade when the Academy got its Best Picture decisions consistently right...

It’s widely acknowledged that the 1970s was one of the best periods in American cinema. It’s little surprise, then, that the Academy Awards gave the Best Picture award to some of the best films during its 84 years. But as is often the case with the Oscars, the 70s wasn’t without its controversies, as a number of great films missed out on the award or even failed to be nominated. Even so, the run of Best Picture winners from 1970 to 1979 was incredibly strong.

The decade started with Midnight Cowboy scooping the Best Picture award at the 42nd Academy Awards on 7th April 1970, but as the film was released in May 1969 it doesn’t really count as an example of the...

To celebrate the cool thriller Drive, starring Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan, finally hitting UK cinema screens today, we thought it would be the perfect time to run down the 10 Greatest Cinematic Car Chases!

If there’s one thing that makes an action/thriller movie great, it’s an all out car chase. I’m talking explosions, wrecked vehicles, impossible stunts, policemen who can’t drive, villains who can shoot and drive, heroes that can shoot, drive, escape the clutch of the bad guys and save the day all from one indestructible vehicle…basically, we want carnage! Whilst this week’s theatrical release of Drive may not offer all of this, there are plenty of films that do.

Read on to discover what we think are the 10 best movie car chases…

10. 2 Fast, 2 Furious (2003)

Ok, so this is one of my ‘guilty pleasures’ films, which I can’t help but enjoy.

"I'm a Friedkin fan, but this one let me down," writes Dan Sallitt in a dispatch to the Notebook today, and he pretty well sums up the general consensus, give or take, that Killer Joe, which screened in Competition in Venice (and left empty-handed) before rolling on to Toronto, is no Exorcist (1973) — or French Connection (1971), which happens to be opening today for a 9-day run at New York's Film Forum.

"Playwright Tracey Letts and director William Friedkin seem both a natural pair and way the hell too much together," writes Scott Tobias. "Letts's work is overheated enough without Friedkin turning up the gas. As with Bug, Killer Joe pitches to the rafters, amping up a hicksploitation thriller with unnecessary jolts of savage violence and abuse." Also at the Av Club, Noel Murray: "As a fervent fan of Friedkin, I confess that I miss the director's more action-oriented side, which isn't...

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Swedish release poster for The French Connection.

Cinema Retro columnist Todd Garbarini was invited by the Film Forum to an advance screening of a remastered print of The French Connection. Here is his report:

NYPD is the name of the festival of New York-based films currently screening at Manhattan’s repertoire theater, the Film Forum. Originally mounted at the same time in 2001, the festival was interrupted by the terrorist attacks on that fateful Tuesday morning.

Among the screenings is a nine-day engagement of William Friedkin’s Oscar-winning The French Connection from 1971 which runs from September 14 – 22. Nominated for eight Academy Awards and scoring golden statues for Best Picture, Best Director (Friedkin), Best Actor (Gene Hackman), Best Screenplay (Ernest Tidyman’s adaptation of Robin Moore’s book), and Best Editing (Jerry Greenberg), The French Connection is a masterpiece of visual storytelling loosely based upon the...

DVD Playhouse June 2011

By

Allen Gardner

Kiss Me Deadly (Criterion) Robert Aldrich’s 1955 reinvention of the film noir detective story is one of cinema’s great genre mash-ups: part hardboiled noir; part cold war paranoid thriller; and part science- fiction. Ralph Meeker plays Mickey Spillane’s fascist detective Mike Hammer as a narcissistic simian thug, a sadist who would rather smash a suspect’s fingers than make love to the bevvy of beautiful dames that cross his path. In fact, the only time you see a smile cross Meeker’s sneering mug is when he’s doling out pain, with a vengeance. When a terrified young woman (Cloris Leachman, film debut) literally crossed Hammer’s path one night, and later turns up dead, he vows to get to the bottom of her brutal demise. One of the most influential films ever made, and perhaps the most-cited film by the architects...

“I was shocked when he (Tidyman) walked into my office, because I was expecting a black person, because Shaft was about African-Americans.”

That’s what French Connection producer Philip D’Antoni recalls about former newspaperman- turned-pulp novelist and writer of Shaft novels Ernest R. Tidyman in the documentary Making the Connection: The Untold Stories.

“Not only was he white, but a very WASPy person from Ohio,” he said.

At the time, Tidyman was a 42 year old former New York Times reporter who, based on the social changes taking place, contemplated and decided to write Shaft.

“The idea came out of my awareness of both social and literary situations in a changing city,” Tidyman told a writer in 1973. “There are winners, survivors and losers in the New York scheme of things. It was time for a black winner, whether he was a private detective or an obstetrician.”

In Shaft’s forty...

(Celebrating award week with a look at one of Oscar’s most notable champions: The French Connection. Thirty-nine years ago, Connection – besides being one of the biggest hits of the 1970s – was the top winner at the Academy Awards walking away with gold for Best Picture [collected by producer Phil D’Antoni], Director [William Friedkin], Actor [Gene Hackman], Adapted Screenplay [by Ernest Tidyman], and Editing [Gerald Greenburg].)

“I grew up in a world where Edward G. Robinson, Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney …these were the heroes. Not the cops. Cops were the bad guys. Or they were stumbling around, couldn’t find their asses with both hands.”

So says Sonny Grosso, and it is a screen icongraphy he has worked hard to change. Grosso-Jacobson Communications has produced over 750 hours of programming for network and premium and basic cable television in its thirty-odd years. Though its output has run from Pee Wee’s Playhouse to adventure fare like Counterstrike, the most acclaimed of the company’s offerings...

Since the earliest days of American cinema there has been a shadowy counterpart to the commercial mainstream: exploitation movies — pictures whose appeal lies in their sensational treatment and leering promotion of often lurid and prurient material. Pre-1960, when mainstream Hollywood worked within severe restrictions on content, exploitation movies offered audiences titillating glimpses of the deliciously taboo, usually under the guise of being some sort of instructional cautionary against the very subject matter being exploited i.e. sex in “hygiene” movies like The Road to Ruin (1934), drugs in anti-drug movies like Tell Your Children (1936, re-released in the 1960s/70s as camp classic Reefer Madness), and gambling in the anti-vice Gambling with Souls (1936).

By the 1950s, as the studios entered their long post-war decline, downscale producers launched a new vein of exploitation moviemaking, churning out low-budget thrillers (mostly sci fi and horror) aimed squarely at the burgeoning youth audience. Again, the movies were cheap,...

Oscar-winning director William Friedkin.

In July of 1997, I conducted the first of two lengthy interviews with director William Friedkin, regarded by many as the "enfant terrible" of the so-called "Easy Riders and Raging Bulls" generation of filmmakers who, for one brief, shining moment, seemed to reinvent American cinema in the late '60s thru the late '70s. Meeting Friedkin was something of a milestone for me at the time: I was still in my 20s, had been writing for Venice Magazine less than a year, and "Billy," as he likes people to call him, was the first person I interviewed who was one of my childhood heroes--a filmmaker whose one-sheets hung on my bedroom walls when I was growing up.

Below are the two interviews, conducted a decade apart from one another, and posted in reverse chronology. In both, Billy reveals a cunning intellect, a sometimes abrasive personal style,...

Gordon Parks and Ernest Tidyman transformed the action film with this charismatic, Chandleresque Brooklyn private eye played by Richard Roundtree, the spiritual father to Foxy Brown, Cotton, The Hammer and many others. One of the first and slickest of the "blaxploitation" films, it was followed by two sequels, a tv series and a recent remake starring Samuel L. Jackson. Isaac Hayes' title song won the Oscar.

We all get the Hell we deserve. Is there any doubt about whether or not this is a horror film? Because it totally is.  That opening shot... a man and a horse seeming to materialize out of this haze, and that ghostly score... clearly, something bad is coming. And that something is Clint Eastwood. And the town of Lago is not ready. It's easy to forget now, since this film is 36 years old at this point, but this was a young man's film.  Eastwood had only made one other movie as director when he made this one, and Ernest Tidyman...

Blu-Ray Rating: 3.0/5.0 Chicago – “The French Connection” is one of those rare movies that’s always better than I remember it to be. Not that I think poorly of William Friedkin’s masterful procedural, a multiple Oscar winner and game-changer in the world of detective cinema, but that it’s a film that blows me away every time see it. So why did William Friedkin have to mess with the picture?

Maybe I’m too much of a purist, but I’m not alone in responding very negatively to the unusual video tampering done by William Friedkin on his amazing “The French Connection,” the winner for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Screenplay, and Best Director. Both Jeffrey Wells and Glenn Kenny have expressed similar disappointment in Friedkin’s remastering for arguably one of the best films of the ’70s.

The French Connection was released on Blu-Ray on February 24th, 2009.

Photo credit: Fox Essentially,...

Samuel L. Jackson strides through "Shaft" oozing all of the juice a righteous man can muster. Decked out in Armani double-breasted blazers and black leather jackets, Jackson's Shaft is five steps ahead of everyone else, can read people's minds, takes crap from nobody and never misses when he fires a handgun. He defines big-city cool. He is also the only reason to catch this otherwise routine exercise in street mayhem and outdated urban stereotypes.

As a remake or sequel or renewal -- call it what you will -- of the early-1970s cinema icon, "Shaft" is positioned to pull in sizable crossover audiences both young and old. While some may be put off by its advocacy of vigilante justice and its negative racial images, the unfortunate fact is that many will probably laugh at the snide racial put-downs and dig the gratuitous bloodshed. Director John Singleton and his producers are to be congratulated for hiring the only actor likely to pull this character off convincingly; otherwise, one can only wish they might experience a wince of embarrassment.

"Shaft" (1971) and "Shaft's Big Score!" (1972) -- both starring Richard Roundtree, written by Ernest Tidyman and directed by Gordon Parks Jr. -- were two of the best blaxploitation films of that era. In Roundtree's Shaft, black youths found an action figure they could respond to, a symbol of black pride who could manipulate the white man's system to his own advantage. Indeed, his very name was an action verb.

But this new film, written by Singleton, Shane Salerno and Richard Price, makes the mistake of continuing the 1970s attitudes into the New York of 2000. Much has changed in two decades. Racism has gone underground and emerged in more subtle forms than the writers are willing to acknowledge. The world is actually much more complex and insidious now. But the writers prefer to keep things simple: All whites are racist or corrupt or both; most blacks are shady outlaws; Latinos are drug dealers; and shooting someone has no consequences.

Jackson's John Shaft is actually the nephew to Roundtree's John Shaft, who turns up occasionally here as Jackson's mentor and confidant. The younger Shaft is an NYPD detective who, like his uncle, is close to the streets and knows how to play its players.

The plot is every bit as rudimentary as the early Shaft movies. A super-rich white racist, played by Christian Bale -- just back from his tour of duty as an "American Psycho" -- wantonly murders a black man. Shaft arrests him, but his wealthy daddy posts bail and he flees the country. Two years later, the fugitive secretly returns, Shaft again arrests him, and a white judge once again frees him on bail, the latter plot twist an unconscionable denial of any sort of judicial reality by the filmmakers.

Shaft abruptly resigns from the force and takes matters into his own hands, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake for which he bears no apparent responsibility. Meanwhile, in an even more implausible plot twist, Bale seeks out a Dominican drug dealer (Jeffrey Wright) and hires him to track down and eliminate the only witness to his crime, a waitress played by Toni Collette. Even the drug lord has to admit the assignment is not part of his usual criminal repertoire.

As a matter of course, Shaft must work against his old department's corrupt cops (Dan Hedaya and Ruben Santiago-Hudson) and an indifferent management style. Backing him up are only one female cop (Vanessa Williams, who, surprisingly, is not a Shaft love interest) and a right-hand man (an amusing, lively performance by rapper Busta Rhymes).

The characterizations of all these personalities are hopelessly banal with nothing percolating beneath the surfaces. Essentially, everyone acts as straight man to Jackson's Shaft, and Jackson is up to the challenge. With Isaac Hayes' signature tune pacing his long, measured strides and a don't-mess-with-me glare in his eyes, Jackson reinvigorates a potential franchise character for Paramount.

Giving Shaft's mean streets their sheen are cameraman Donald E. Thorin's brooding images, fast-paced editing by John Bloom and Antonia Van Drimmelen and a crazy-quilt old/new production design from Patrizia von Brandenstein.

SHAFT

Paramount Pictures

Scott Rudin/New Deal

Producers: Scott Rudin, John Singleton

Director: John Singleton

Writers: Richard Price, John Singleton, Shane Salerno

Story by: John Singleton, Shane Salerno

Based on the novel by: Ernest Tidyman

Executive producers: Adam Schroeder, Paul Hall, Steve Nicolaides

Director of photography: Donald E. Thorin

Production designer: Patrizia von Brandenstein

Music: David Arnold, Isaac Hayes

Co-producer: Eric Steel

Costume designer: Ruth Carter

Editors: John Bloom, Antonia Van Drimmelen

Color/stereo

Cast:

John Shaft: Samuel L. Jackson

Carmen Vasquez: Vanessa Williams

Peoples Hernandez: Jeffrey Wright

Walter Wade Jr.: Christian Bale

Rasaan: Busta Rhymes

Jack Roselli: Dan Hedaya

Diane Palmieri: Toni Collette

(Uncle) John Shaft: Richard Roundtree

Jimmy Groves: Ruben Santiago-Hudson

Running time -- 98 minutes

MPAA rating: R...