John Shaft

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Created by Ernest Tidyman
(1928-84)

Who is the man
Who would risk his neck for his brother man?
SHAFT!
Who’s the cat who won’t cop out
When there’s danger all about?
SHAFT!
He’s a complicated man
And no one understands him like his woman
JOHN SHAFT
You say this cat Shaft is a mean mother-
Shut ya mout’!
I’m talkin’ ’bout Shaft!
Then we can dig it!!!
— words and music by Isaac Hayes

JOHN SHAFT is one of the few private eyes probably best known outside the shamus gang for his theme song (Peter Gunn‘s the only other one I can think of). In Shaft’s case, it’s Isaac Hayes’ Academy Award-winning, percolating, throbbing slab of funk that served as the theme for the 1971 film (based on Ernest Tidyman’s novel of the same year) and subsequent hit single that set the tone for much of the following decade’s black pop music, though little of it matched the visceral mean streets ferocity of its groove.

And Shaft was every bit as innovative as his theme song, both as the harbinger of the blaxploitation film explosion of the seventies, and within the literary genre of private eyes. Up until Shaft, black eyes were few and far between. In fact, except for Ed Lacy’s Toussaint Moore, there were few of any consequence at all. A few P.I.’s, either chock-full of racist stereotypes, or victims of a condescending whitewash, and that was about it.

Shaft changed all that.

It wasn’t just that he was black. He was defiant in-yer-motherfucking-face black. The original angry black dick, as violent and prejudiced and raw as Mike Hammer. A permanent chip on his shoulder and an attitude that left no doubt that he was nobody to mess with.

And he never backed down. As Raymond Chandler put it, in his essay, “The Simple Art of Murder”: “He will take no man’s…insolence without a due and dispassionate revenge. He is a lonely man and his pride is that you will treat him as a proud man or be very sorry you ever saw him.” Shaft was always ready to mix it up, or even go to war.

Shaft’s turf was the very mean streets of New York City, back in the bad old days, and he cut a very mean streak right through it.  He’d grown up an orphan and he’d seen action in Vietnam, but he’d put all of that (except, perhaps the anger, behind him). He was a different man, now. He had expensive tastes, and liked to dress sharp. He had a swinging bachelor pad in Greenwich Village, took his espresso at Caffe Reggio, and worked out of an office in Times Square, but his cases often took him into Harlem and other black neighbourhoods–and later, around the world. But his clients and friends come from the ‘hood, and his cases often involved various black mobsters and/or radicals. He distrusted most whites, but he had little use for activists or politicians of any colour. He was determined to be his own man.

The Shaft books, taken as a whole, are some of the toughest, most hard-boiled P.I. novels of the seventies, and while the books did okay, it wasn’t until the first novel, Shaft (1970), was adapted by director Gordon Parks and screenwriter John D.F. Black and released the following year that Shaft, as played by Richard Roundtree became a household name.

The Oscar winning theme song by Isaac Hayes didn’t hurt, either. The film almost single-handedly launched the Blaxploitation explosion, and the the three films, which cleaned up Shaft considerably from the novels, made an even huger impact on the population as a whole (particularly the first two. The third, Shaft Goes to Africa, was a bad idea from the start). There was a series of toothless television movies, although they cleaned up Shaft even further, emasculating both him and Hayes’ score. About the only thing left from the films was actor Richard Roundtree in the lead role, looking bewildered. “Shaft on TV makes Barnaby Jones look like Eldridge Cleaver,”‘ was the way Cecil Smith of The Los Angeles Times put it. It wasn’t meant as a compliment.

There was even an attempt by Tidyman to bring Shaft to the comics page. He commissioned veteran comic artist Don Rico to develop a presentation package for a Shaft strip, and while their efforts went unsold, there’s no doubt how serious they were. A generous sampling, consisting of partial and finished strips, plus a folder of conceptual sketches, correspondence and draft scripts existed, were sold at auction for almost two grand in 2023.

UNDER OATH

  • “Richard Roundtree was charming on screen, but the Shaft in Tidyman’s novel is a richer character in many ways. In the book, the character is meaner. We find out his back-story as an orphan and Vietnam vet. None of that is even mentioned in the film.”
    — Nelson George (2019, Sticking It to the Man: Revolution and Counterculture in Pulp and Popular Fiction, 1950 to 1980)

MEET THE NEW SHAFTS; NOT AS GOOD AS THE OLD SHAFT

  • SHAFT (2000)
  • Fast forward a couple of decades or so… it just had to happen, after all suffocating seventies nostalgia going on in the nineties: Shaft came back! But maybe he should have stayed away. The times, for better or worse, had indeed a-changed.
  • With the rise of hip-hop culture, the sheer audacity of the original character had become pretty much standard fare in cinema. John “Boyz ‘n’ the Hood” Singleton was enlisted to helm a big bucks, big screen remake of the classic flick about “the black private eye who digs like a private sex machine with all the chicks”, with Richard “Clockers” Price scripting, and Samuel “Pulp Fiction” Jackson starring. Richard Roundtree even popped up as the original Shaft, to hand over the family biz to nephew Jackson. A symbolic passing of the torch; a new Shaft for a new era. Can you dig it?
  • I thought I would, especially given all the talent involved, but the end result was disappointing, to say the least. This Shaft wasn’t even a private eye anymore — he was a cop. Oh, they pumped up the volume, and it’s certainly entertaining, in a slick, pre-programmed, pass the popcorn sorta way, but it was just another movie; a clear indicator that it wasn’t 1971. It was a marketing strategy with a movie as an attachment, with all the edge of a Nerf ball and all the soul of a paper cup, just another over-ampled shoot-’em-up. The original film was far from perfect, but it had a rough, raw palpable energy to it that audiences of all races responded to. This remake/reboot/reimagining had none of that. The throbbing Isaac Hayes soundtrack is by far the best part.
  • In fact, when I first saw it in a theatre, the only time the audience truly perked up was when the first few notes of the original theme came throbbing through the speakers, promising great things to come.

FURTHER THOUGHTS ON  SHAFT (2000)

  • PRO: Action scenes are nicely done. Samuel Jackson is very good in the title role. The two main villains are quite well-drawn. It’s great to see Richard Roundtree again. That music is still great. Good story.
  • CON: Didn’t they listen to the soundtrack? The lyric is “Who’s the black PRIVATE dick?” not “Who’s the black police dick?” I’ve got nothing against cop pictures, but Shaft is supposed to be a private eye, not a cop? Even though he quits the force about halfway through the movie, and seems to be setting up as a PI at the very end of the movie, he never really stops being a cop in his own mind (or the audience’s). Even the closing sequence in which he seems to be quitting for good to go into private business leaves a little room for doubt as he goes out on one last police call.
    And, nice as it was to see Richard Roundtree again, I found all this “passing the baton” stuff a little forced. I mean when they re-cast James Bond or Tarzan or Batman, they don’t say that the new guy is the old guy’s kid brother or nephew or cousin or something. They just say a different actor is playing the same character. Besides, if I recall the books correctly, Shaft is an only child, which means he had no siblings, which means he couldn’t have a nephew.
    When you’ve got a gorgeous woman like Vanessa Williams in the movie, why try to make her look homely (it didn’t work anyway)? The insistence that this “isn’t a re-make” (which is quite true by the way), is a little confusing given that the title is Shaft (just like the original) and the credits say “based on the novel by Ernest Tidyman” (just like the original). If they want to differentiate it from the first film, why not give it some more appropriate title like The Return of Shaft or something and a more precisely correct credit line like “based on CHARACTERS created by Ernest Tidyman?”
    — Jim Doherty of Chicago
  • “You are aware, aren’t you, that Shaft dies in The Last Shaft? This apparently was never published in the USA, and my copy is a British paperback. It is not the same book as Goodbye, Mr. Shaft. Also…rumors persist that some of the Shaft novels were ghosted…probably the paperback originals. Nonetheless, I am a huge Shaft fan — Shaft in Africa rules… I did like the new movie, but it disappoints me the P.I. aspect was played down so much. Roundtree is still the man.”
    — Max Allan Collins

SHAFT (2019)

Not to rain on anyone’s parade, but… why?

Richard Roundtree’s was back as John Shaft #1, and Jackson reprised his role as John Shaft #2. They were there to help John “J.J.” (Shaft #3, played by Jessie T. Usher), a hot-shot FBI cyber security expert, who wants to know the truth behind his best friend’s suspicious death. But the trailers quickly showed how off the rails this riff on the franchise was heading, and the actual result was worse. It was played as… a comedy? A lot of smirky wisecracks and juvenile dick jokes. Just stupid.

As David Crow of Den of Geek put it, “Shaft (2019) attempts to be a funny ode to the past, but it’s neither funny or understanding of what made that past so awesome. The older Shafts might be bad mothers, but their likely final movie is just bad.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Shaft’s creator was Ernest Tidyman, the son of a police reporter for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. At age 14, Ernest dropped out of school and got a job as the police reporter with the rival Cleveland News, lying about his age. After two years in the U.S. Army, he returned to Cleveland and went to work for the Plain Dealer before moving to the Big Apple, where he worked for the New York Post and The New York Times. He tried his hand at writing books, beginning with Flower Power (1968), a novel set among the hippies of Haight-Ashbury, and later wrote several true crime books and standalone novels, but it was his second novel, Shaft (1970), that caught the public’s attention. It also proved to be his entry into the film business. After co-writing the screenplay for Shaft (1971), he went on to script such films as The French Connection and High Plains Drifter. But it was Shaft that served as the high point of his career. So well received was the film version by the African-American community–no doubt overjoyed to see a tough, smart, well-dressed black private eye more than holding his own in a white world, telling both the cops and the mob to fuck off –that the NAACP bestowed its Image Award upon Tidyman. It was a true honour, given that Tidyman was white.

THE EVIDENCE

  • “The ripping sound you’re gonna hear, cocksucker, is your arm coming out of the socket.”
    — Shaft Has A Ball (1973)

UNDER OATH

  • “Shaft isn’t exactly the type of detective who makes a good hero… He isn’t super-smart, for one thing, ultimately cracking his cases with brute force and wanton violence. Where there is room during an investigation for strategy, wit and out-thinking the bad guys, he doesn’t use it. His gun serves as a substitute for his brains, and people invariably get killed in his adventures.”
    — Otto Penzler in The Private Lives of Private Eyes (1977)
  • “I remember seeing the original, as a kid, back around 1974, and being blown away by how cool it all was, but now it just seems incredibly dated. Did everyone in Harlem really go around calling everyone ‘cat’? Still, a kick-ass score, and some great scenes.”
    — Duke Seabrook
  • “I would like for Shaft (in the 2000 film) to be a good role model, but… if they’re true to Shaft’s character, he won’t be.”
    — Ernest Tidyman’s son, from Talkin’ ’bout Ernest Tidyman 
  • “I got into the Shaft books — my introduction to detective fiction. I loved those books….I’d bought the pop record, the soundtrack to the original movie Shaft, and I thought that was terrific. And then I couldn’t get in to see the film — I wasn’t 18 yet. So I bought the first Shaft book, and then the second film came out and the book came out with that, so I bought it, too. I kept up with Shaft long after the series was past its sell-by date…But it’s sad, really. ‘Cuz those stories were kind of “blaxploitation.” Ernest Tidyman was a white writer, and I don’t think he had his finger on the real pulse of what was happening in the black world.”
    — Ian Rankin, creator of the Inspector Rebus series (heartily recommended), who cheerfully admits that he got Rebus’ first name, “John” from John Shaft, and was evidently very down with the brothers in Scotland.

NOVELS

 

FILMS

  • SHAFT | Buy this video | Buy this DVD
    (1971, MGM)
    Screenplay by Ernest Tidyman and John D.F. Black
    Based on the novel by Ernest Tidyman
    Directed by Gordon Parks
    Produced by Joel Freeman
    Music by Isaac Hayes
    Original theme written and performed by Isaac Hayes
    Starring Richard Roundtree as JOHN SHAFT
    Also starring Moses Gunn, Charles Cioffi, Christopher St. John, Gwenn Mitchell, Lawrence Pressman, Victor Arnold, Sherri Brewer, Rex Robbins, Camille Yarbrough, Margaret Warncke, Joseph Leon, Arnold Johnson, Dominic Barto, George Strus
  • SHAFT’S BIG SCORE! | Buy this video | Buy this DVD
    (1972, MGM)
    Screenplay by Ernest Tidyman
    Based on the novel by Ernest Tidyman
    Directed by Gordon Parks
    Produced by David Golden, Roger Lewis and Ernest Tidyman
    A Shaft Productions Ltd. production
    Original music by Gordon Parks
    Tagline: You liked it before, so he’s back with more, SHAFT’S BACK IN ACTION!
    Starring Richard Roundtree as JOHN SHAFT
    Also starring Moses Gunn, Drew Bundini Brown, Joseph Mascolo, Kathy Imrie, Wally Taylor, Julius Harris, Rosalind Miles, Joe Santos, Angelo Nazzo, Don Blakely, Melvin Green Jr., Thomas Anderson, Evelyn Davis, Richard Pittman, Robert Kya-Hill, Thomas Brann, Bob Jefferson
  • SHAFT IN AFRICA | Buy this video | Buy this DVD
    (1973, MGM)
    Screenplay by Stirling Silliphant
    Based on characters created by Ernest Tidyman
    Directed by John Guillermin
    Produced by René Dupont
    Associate producer: Roger Lewis
    Original music by Johnny Pate
    Theme Song: “Are You Man Enough?” by The Four Tops
    Tagline: The Brother Man in the Motherland.
    Starring Richard Roundtree as JOHN SHAFT
    Also starring Frank Finlay, Vonetta McGee, Neda Arneric, Debebe Eshetu, Spiros Focás, Jacques Herlin, Jho Jhenkins, Willie Jonah, Adolfo Lastretti, Marne Maitland, Frank McRae, Zenebech Tadesse, A.V. Falana, James E. Myers, Nadim Sawalha, Thomas Baptiste, Jon Chevron, Glynn Edwards, Cy Grant, Jacques Marin, Nick Zaran, Aldo Sambrell
  • SHAFT | Buy this video | Buy this DVD | | Buy the Blu-Ray
    (2000, Paramount)
    Screenplay by Richard Price
    Based on characters created by Ernest Tidyman
    Directed by John Singleton
    Tagline: Still the man, any questions?
    Theme composed and performed by Isaac Hayes
    Starring Samuel L. Jackson as SHAFT
    Also starring Richard Roundtree, Vanessa L. Williams, Jeffrey Wright, Christian Bale, Dan Hedaya, Busta Rhymes, Toni Collette, Philip Bosco, Will Chase, Jennifer Esposito, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Josef Sommer
  • SHAFT | Buy the DVD  | Buy the Blu-Ray | Watch it now!
    (2019, Warner Bros.)
    Based on characters created by Ernest Tidyman
    Screenplay by Kenya Barris and Alex Barnow
    Directed by Tim Story
    Starring Samual Jackson as JOHN SHAFT II
    Richard Roundtree as JOHN SHAFT
    and Jessie T. Usher as JOHN SHAFT JR.
    Also starring Regina Hall, Avia Jogia, Alexandra Shipp, Luna Lauren Velez, Matt Lauria, Method Man

DVD COLLECTIONS

TELEVISION

  • SHAFT | Buy the complete series on DVD
    (1973-74, CBS)
    7 90-minute television movies
    Premiere: October 9, 1973
    Last Original Broadcast: February 19, 1974
    Based on characters created by Ernest Tidyman
    Developed for television by William Read Woodfield and Allan Balter
    Producer: William Reed Woodfield
    Executive Producer: Allan Balter
    An CBS/MGM Television Production
    Theme Music: Isaac Hayes
    Music: Johnny Pate
    Starring Richard Roundtree as JOHN SHAFT
    with Ed Barth as Lieutenant Rossi
    Part of The New CBS Tuesday Night Movies, rotating with Hawkins, which starred James Stewart.

    • “The Enforcers” (October 9, 1973)
    • “The Killing”
    • “Hit-Run”
    • “The Kidnapping”
    • “Cop Killer”
    • “The Capricorn Murders”
    • “The Murder Machine” (February 19, 1974)

COMICS & GRAPHIC NOVELS

  • SHAFT
    (1972, Ernest Tidyman Productions)
    Comic Strip
    Written by Ernest Tidyman
    Art by Don Rico
    A tantalizing glimpse of what might have been, the project was never picked up, although the presentation package has been making the rounds ever since.
  • SHAFT
    (2015, Dynamite Comics)
    6-issue miniseries
    Based on characters created by Ernest Tidyman
    Written by David F. Walker
    Art by Bilquis Evely
    Here we go. Dynamite had signed a deal that will allow them to not only release original comics and graphic novels, but also new prose novels, as well as re-prints of all the existing Shaft novels. What happened?
  • SHAFT: IMITATION OF LIFE
    (2016, Dynamite Comics)
    Miniseries
    Based on characters created by Ernest Tidyman
    Writers: David F. Walker
    Artists: Dietrich Smith, Matthew Clark

    • “Part One: Before and After” (February 2016,#1)
    • “Untitled” (March 2016, #2)
    • “Love and Loss” (April 2016, #3)
    • “All the World’s a Stage” (May 2016, #4)

GRAHIC NOVELS & COLLECTIONS

  • SHAFT: A COMPLICATED MAN | Buy this book
    (2015, Dynamite Comics)
    Graphic novel collects the entire 2015 Dynamite mini-series by David F. Walker, as well as script pages, concept art, variant covers and more.
  • SHAFT: IMITATION OF LIFE | Buy this book | Kindle/Comixology
    (2017, Dynamite Comics)
    Collects the 2016 mini-series by David F. Walker, as well as the usual script pages, concept art, variant covers and more.

ALSO OF INTEREST

  • Aldous, Steve,
    The World of Shaft | Buy this book
    McFarland Press, 2015.
    Pretty much all you’d ever want to know about Shaft. Billed as “A Complete Guide to the Novels, Comic Strip, Films and Television Series,” the book focusses quite a bit on the trials and tribulations of Tidyman, drawing from his own personal papers, and then revisits the whole Shaft world: the novels (by Tidyman and others), the films, the long-lost newspaper comic strip and the series’ upcoming return to the printed page, and, supposedly, to the big screen.

RELATED LINKS

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith. A very special thanks to Mark Sullivan, Gerald So and Ernest Tidyman’s son(name witheld upon request) for their input.

 

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