Shaft (1971 film)

Shaft is a 1971 blaxploitation film which tells the story of a 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, 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.

Dialogue

 * Ellie: You got problems, baby?
 * Shaft: Yeah, I got a couple of 'em. I was born black and I was born poor.


 * Lt. Androzzi: Where you going?
 * Shaft: To get laid — where the hell you going?


 * Mafia contact: I'm looking for a nigger named John Shaft.
 * Shaft: Just found him, wop.

Theme song

 * Isaac Hayes: Who's the black private dick / That's a sex machine to all the chicks?
 * Chorus: Shaft!
 * Isaac Hayes: You damn right. / Who is the man / That would risk his neck for his brother man?
 * Chorus: Shaft!
 * Isaac Hayes: Can ya dig it? / Who's the cat that won't cop out / When there's danger all about?
 * Chorus: Shaft!
 * Isaac Hayes: Right on! / You see, this cat Shaft is a bad mother—
 * Chorus: Shut your mouth!
 * Isaac Hayes: But I'm talkin' 'bout Shaft!
 * Chorus: Then we can dig it!
 * Isaac Hayes: He's a complicated man, / But no one understands him but his woman.
 * Chorus: John Shaft!