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BLAXPLOITATIVE
HISTORY ON FILM
From the silent era to the
1960s, there was a completely
separate industry for black-
cast movies. They played in
"colored" theaters, were typi
cally low-budget and remain
extremely obscure.
In 1971 Melvin van Peebles
made a small film with a mili
tant black theme called Sweet
Sweetback’s Baad Asssss Song
and, after it made millions,
movie producers of all colors
targeted its audience. And
voila: blaxploitation, black-
cast genre pictures promising
sex and violence in urban
pop-culture settings, brought
black films into the main-
strpani (barely). Here's a brief
introduction:
SWEET SWEETBACK'S
BAAD ASSSSS SONG
(1971). This one started it all.
Our hero, Sweetback (youll
never guess how he got the
nickname) is framed for a
murder and spends most of
the picture just running,
through a war-zone inner
city, from the cops. It's really
more like some sort of
Godardiari revolutionary film
than a low-budget action
movie. It stars "the black
community."
SHAFT (1971). Gordon Parks
Sr. directed this classic private
dick flick starring Richard
Roundtree as John Shaft. It's
a good, though fairly stan
dard, Chandleresque private
eye story set in Harlem. The
plot doesn't make race the
main issue, but everything
(the Isaac Hayes soundtrack,
the secondary characters, the
settings) constantly remind us
of the separation between the
black world of Harlem and the
white world of lower
Manhattan.
Music is great-n-all, but
Sometimes you’ve
just gotta
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SUPERFLY (1973). The third
of the big three blaxploitation
classics, and. to me, the most
watchable. Suave, long-haired
Priest (Ron O'Neal) is a pen
sive coke dealer who wants to
make one last big score and
then "get out of the game."
His partner tells him, "It's the
only game the man left us to
play." The movie shows the
legal system as corrupt,
straight life as misery, and
drug dealers as glamorous.
Like Butch Cassidy and the
Sundance Kid and other white
anti-hero movies, it's not con
cerned with the truth or
responsibility of such an out
look. Directed by Gordon Parks
Jr. and featuring one of the
all time great soundtracks by
Curtis Mayfield.
COFFY (1973). The volup
tuous Pam Grier (Jackie Brown)
developed a cult following
after starring in several low-
budget action movies. Here
he can perform his act to a
sold out crowd and save the
local nightclub.
she plays a pissed-off nurse
posing as a hooker in order to
get even with the local drug
pushers. It's violent,
exciting and laugh
ably hokey.
DOLEMITE (1974).
Rudy Ray Moore,
another blaxploita
tion staple, was a
flabby stand-up rap
ping comedian who
made a successful
transition to cult-
action-movie
stardom. Sort of the
black Ed Wood,
Moore's movies make
Superfly look like
Shakespeare.
Dolemite, like his
other movies, is a
raunchy tall tale
about a bad ass
karate expert/come
dian who has to
battle crooked cops
and criminals before
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IB FLAGPOLE FEBRUARY 24, 1999