Shaft (1971) DVD

The Mob Wanted Harlem Back. They Got Shaft...Up To Here. 

"Hotter than Bond. Cooler than Bullitt," movie posters proclaimed. John Shaft was indeed a shut-your-mouth detective to reckon with, a fact emphasized from the film's start by Isaac Hayes' Academy Award-winning Best Original Song and Oscar-nominated score.

Richard Roundtree plays the smart, tough confident lead, a private investigator whose hunt for a kidnapped woman puts him in the middle of feuding syndicates.

Gordon Parks directs from a screenplay that Ernest Tidyman (Oscar winner for 'The French Connection') co-scripted from his own novel. John Shaft is an icon of change from an era of change. Shaft still tells it like it is.