Shaft

The Hard-Hitting Original That Started It All.

"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 (that same year's Oscar winner for The French Connection) co-scripted from his own novel.John Shaft is an icon of change from an era of change.Today, Shaft still tells it like it is.