Rent Shaft (1971)

They don't call me Mr. Tibbs. - Shaft review by Steve

If not the first blaxploitation film, this is the one that reached a global audience. It has the urban decay and street hustle typical of early 1970s crime thrillers, and the soul-funk soundtrack. Though the premise goes back as far as Dashiell Hammett's Continental Op. Shaft is a PI who must negotiate a mob war between the Mafia and black Harlem gangsters to locate a kidnapped child.

The plot unspools without any surprises, but the period genre motifs are relishable, with the shoeshine supergrass, the blind informer in a news kiosk... Plus the peeling tenements of New York in decline, under the thumb of the racketeers. All this metropolitan sleaze feels like a Don Siegel neo-noir, though the Harlem locations are novel.

The private dick knows everyone on the street, and how to stay alive. But his identity as a black detective isn't merely an afterthought. It is crucial to his underdog appeal, up against the man. Richard Roundtree is well cast in his screen debut, and he models Shaft's trademark leather trenchcoat with the poise of a former model.

The funk symphony of Isaac Hayes' Oscar winning 'Theme from Shaft' plays over the opening credits, and this is actually the best part of the picture! These characters soon became stereotypes and the situations standard on tv cop shows. But in 1971 this was a revolution and Roundtree the first black anti-hero in a mainstream hit.