Blaxploitation Films: An Overview of the African American Urban Action Genre of the 1970s

Richard Roundtree as Shaft.

The term “Blaxploitation" was coined in the early 1970s to describe a genre of low-budget, action pictures that featured mostly American African actors and typically played in urban neighborhood theaters.  Some critics considered these movies offensive, charging that their African Americans protagonists were poorly-developed stereotypes. Indeed, Blaxplotation "heroes" were often private eyes, gangsters, and drug dealers that were violent, sexually insatiable, and defiant of authority. Those traits were certainly nothing new in 1970s cinema--Dirty Harry's Inspector Callahan was more violent than the private eye hero in Shaft and James Bond was more promiscuous. What made Shaft unique was that its protagonist was a black man and--at a time when the only African American movie star was Sidney Poitier--that was a game-changer.

The mainstream success of Blaxploitation pictures like Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970) and Shaft (1971) spawned dozens of urban action films from 1971 to 1976. Richard Roundtree, who exuded cool as John Shaft in three films, became the genre's first star, but others quickly followed: former football player Fred Williamson; feisty Pam Grier; and, to a lesser degree, Tamara Dobson (Cleopatra Jones), karate champion Jim Kelly (Black Belt Jones), and Bernie Casey (Hit Man).

The majority of Blaxploitation films were aimed to simply entertain. They were, after all, "exploitation films," defined in The Film Encyclopedia as movies "made with little or no attention to quality or artistic merit but with an eye to a quick profit, usually via high-pressure sales and promotion techniques emphasizing some sensational aspect of the product." Still, the Blaxploitation genre made a lasting impact on the film industry by spotlighting African American actors, indirectly promoting female empowerment, and producing memorable film soundtracks.  

Williamson in Black Caesar.

Actors like Richard Pryor, Godfrey Cambridge, and William Marshall had established solid credentials in the entertainment industry well before the start of Blaxploitation films. However, their careers got a substantial boost when they landed starring roles in The Mack (Pryor), Cotton Comes to Harlem (Cambridge), and Blacula (Marshall). Jim Brown was already a leading man, but the box office hits Slaughter, Black Gunn, and Three the Hard Way made him a bona fide genre superstar. And, as mentioned earlier, the Blaxploitation genre created its own stars in Richard Roundtree, Fred Williamson, Bernie Casey, and Pam Grier--all of whom went on to long careers in film and television.

Pam Grier as Foxy Brown.

Quentin Tarantino has suggested that Pam Grier was Hollywood's first female action star. It's hard to disagree, given her body of work in action films like Coffy, Foxy Brown, and Friday Foster. Combining toughness, sexuality, and female empowerment, Grier dominated the male characters in her films. Even when she became their victim briefly, as in Foxy Brown, she retaliated with a vengeance.

When The Washington Times compiled a list of the Top 10 Female Action Stars earlier this year, Pam Grier ranked #9. Except for Linda Hamilton in Terminator (1991) and Sigourney Weaver in Alien (1979), every other actress listed is from a film made in 2001 or later. Thus, Grier was breaking ground for female action stars that wouldn't be plowed for two more decades--an impressive achievement.

Blaxploitation films also broke ground with urban soundtracks composed by well-known musicians such as Isaac Hayes, Curtis Mayfield, and James Brown. Hayes scored a No. 1 Billboard hit with "Theme from Shaft," which also earned an Academy Award for Best Song. His Shaft soundtrack was so popular that Hayes was cast in the lead role in his own Blaxploitation film, Truck Turner (he also composed its soundtrack). Still, music critics generally regard Curtis Mayfield's Superfly soundtrack as the best for a Blaxploitation film. In fact, the success of Mayfield's No. 4 single, "Freddie's Dead"--which was released before Superfly--may have contributed to the film's success. James Brown's soundtrack for Black Caesar is considered one of his strongest albums.

William Marshall in Blacula.

Speaking of Black Caesar, it's one of several Blaxploitation films with interesting origins. Writer-director Larry Cohen (It's Alive) based Black Caesar  loosely on the 1931 gangster film Little Caesar. The 1972 film Hit Man was a remake of the Michael Caine thriller Get Carter. Black Mama, White Mama appears to be a loose remake of The Defiant Ones. The mainstream success of Blacula (which featured a fine lead performance from William Marshall) spawned other horror films: Blackenstein; Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde; Sugar Hill (about zombies); and the sequel Scream, Blacula, Scream.

This month, the Classic Film & TV Cafe pays homage to the Blaxploitation films--the African American urban action films of the 1970s. Yes, they were violent exploitation films and lasted for just a few years. Yet, they remain an important part of American cinema history and warrant a closer look.

The Umbrella TV Series of the 1970s: The Saga of The Bold Ones, the NBC Mystery Movie, and Others

In 1955, U.S television launched one of its most interesting experiments: the umbrella series, in which different TV shows were rotated in the same time slot under a single title. The original umbrella series was Warner Bros. Presents, in which the TV shows Cheyenne, Casablanca, and King’s Row were all shown in the same time slot. The only one of the three to be renewed was Cheyenne, the Clint Walker Western that evolved into a launch pad for other TV series. The umbrella series concept seemed to die a swift death.

However, it was revived unexpectedly in 1969 when NBC borrowed the format for The Bold Ones—which was three separate series linked only by the fact that (apparently) the protagonists were bold! The rotating shows were The New Doctors (with John Saxon, David Hartman, and E.G. Marshall), The Lawyers (Burl Ives, Joseph Campanella, and James Farentino), and The Law Enforcers (with Leslie Nielsen and Hari Rhodes). The last series performed poorly and was replaced the following year with The Senator, starring Hal Holbrook as an idealistic politician. For the third year, only The New Doctors and The Lawyers were retained. In its final season, The Bold Ones consisted only of its three physicians, even though the umbrella title was still used.

In 1970, NBC introduced the umbrella series Four in One. This time, there was no attempt to connect the separate shows even loosely. Each series consisted of six episodes shown back-to-back…and then the next series would start. The four shows were: McCloud (with Dennis Weaver); San Francisco International Airport (with Lloyd Bridges); Night Gallery (hosted by Rod Serling); and The Psychiatrist (with Roy Thinnes). The advantage of the format was that each series got a limited try-out. It worked out well for Night Gallery, which was renewed and given its own time slot, and McCloud, which moved to The NBC Mystery Movie the following year. The downside to the format was that viewers didn’t have time to get invested in a series before the next one started. As a result, Four in One was deemed a failure.

That didn’t stop NBC from continuing to experiment with the umbrella series concept. In 1971, it launched the most successful of all umbrella series: The NBC Mystery Movie. In its original form, this 90-minutes series consisted of three shows: the previously mentioned McCloud; Columbo (starring Peter Falk); and McMillan & Wife (with Rock Hudson and Susan St. James). The NBC Mystery Movie was a hit from the start and finished among the Top 15 TV series in its first year. Realizing it had a lucrative franchise on its hands, NBC tried to add a fourth show to the original three and eventually expanded to a second night of mysteries with The NBC Wednesday Night Mystery Movie. Alas, detectives came and went quickly, including: Richard Boone as Western detective in Hec Ramsey; Tony Curtis as a con man detective in McCoy; James Farentino as an expensive detective in Cool Million; James McEachin as an African-American family man detective in Tenafly; and Helen Hayes and Mildred Natwick as The Snoop Sisters. The only segments that really clicked were Banacek (with George Peppard as an insurance investigator) and Quincy, M.E. starring Jack Klugman. They each earned their own time slots, though Quincy was the far more successful of the two.

The success of the mystery movie prompted ABC and CBS to develop their own umbrella series—although neither was successful. ABC’s attempt was The Men (love that title!), a 1972 one-season wonder consisting of Assignment: Vienna (with Robert Conrad); The Delphi Bureau (with Laurence Luckenbill); and Jigsaw (with James Wainwright). CBS opted to go with big-name stars with the 1973 New CBS Tuesday Night Movie. Each month, CBS showed two original made-for-TV movies and then one episode each of Hawkins and Shaft. The former series starred James Stewart as a “countrified” crafty lawyer. In the latter series, Richard Roundtree reprised his film role as private eye John Shaft (the violence displayed in the movies was toned down considerably for the small screen).

Except for the NBC Mystery Movie, the umbrella series faded quickly. There were attempts to revive the format in 1979 with Cliffhangers (an innovative experiment worthy of its own article) and NBC Novels for Television (which were basically miniseries…not unlike PBS’s long-running Masterpiece Theater and Mystery!). Unfortunately, the business side of TV production killed the concept. It was simply cheaper to produce one series with a regular cast and standing sets than to multiply those costs by two or three. Variety may be the spice of life, but on television, it can be expensive!