Shaft's Big Score!

Welcome back to “Shaft Month,” where we will talk about the sequel to the first movie, “Shaft’s Big Score,” released in 1972.

The creation of a movie superhero is quite a laborious work. You’re not simply making an action movie. You’re making a mythical character who has to be strong enough to survive maybe a half a dozen sequels. That was precisely the case in the first movie, the incredibly successful movie about a black private eye. The movie was made on a limited budget and there were a lot of tough edges, but John Shaft made enough imaginations to take a million dollars out of the Roosevelt Theater alone in the first movie.

Roger Ebert described Shaft as “a cross between James Bond and Philip Marlowe. He didn't use Bond's science-fiction gadgets, however, and he didn't prowl the seamy underworld of life like Marlowe.” He lived in a comfortable Greenwich Village home and wore expensive leathers and moved with supercool confidence in a city of cops and robbers and the mob.

Now this cool cat returns in “Shaft’s Big Score,” a title that Ebert says, “May be a little modest.” Not only does Shaft end up with a quarter of a million dollars – he starts out with an interesting song or two. He does so well, in fact, that he doesn’t even operate out of his office anymore. He takes calls from clients while he’s in bed. They barely even wake him up.

The story this time has to do with a battle for control of the numbers game in Harlem. There is a good numbers boss who wants to use his profits to build a child-care clinic, and a bad numbers boss who shoves him away. Then there’s the white Mafioso who wants to squeeze into the action. And there’s Shaft, somewhere in the middle, invincible and crafty.

“Shaft’s Big Score” was made on a larger budget than the first movie, and that definitely shows. Ebert notes, “This time director Gordon Parks uses Panavision, surrounds his hero with a talented cast, and pours on the special effects.” The movie ends, for instance, in an incredible land-sea-air chasing including a helicopter, a speedboat, and a shoot-out in the old Brooklyn Navy Yard.

With talented actors from “Shaft” like Moses Gunn back in the sequel (he reprises the role of Bumpy again), and the movie’s most demanding dramatic performance is by Wally Taylor, a former Chicagoan who plays the bad numbers operator. He ends up in the last grave he ever expected to live in. Taylor may even have more dialog in the movie than Richard Roundtree has, which is not surprising since John Shaft is a laconic man of a few words and a great deal of action.

Ebert admitted, “The movie is intended as mass-audience escapist entertainment, and works on that level better than "Shaft" did.” There is also less attracting of white characters this time, and more humor. A lot of scenes are funny, and one scene, involving an elevator and a little old lady, gets so much laughter you can’t hear the movie for five minutes. Ebert concluded, “I cannot describe the dialog in this scene in a family newspaper (maybe not even an adults-only newspaper) but my guess is that within a few weeks, it will have become one of the most famous one-liners in movie history.”

In the end, I am on Ebert's side and actually liked this movie. Everyone else hated it, which I don’t know why, but I think that it’s definitely good. Maybe because it was more humorous, but I think it’s good in its own way. I still like the first one better, but I think that people should give this sequel a chance. Watch it, and see for yourself. If you end up not liking it, I won’t force you to like it, but I do say to at least give the movie a chance.

Stay tuned next week for the movie that quite possibly could have ended Shaft’s career in the movies.