SHAFT (1971) **1/2 The legend and street reverence are even more impressive, but it's a fun flick. Richard Roundtree is probably most worshipped in the form of tough stills, but he also does an impressive job of straddling the many fault-lines targeted by Gordon Parks: altruism-identity (black militants)/greed-achievement (mob/honkey world), love (many bitches!)/violence (many victims), hip (friend of junkies)/square (detests drugs), revolutionary (his own man)/establishment (likes a cop). It actually stakes out some interesting, philosophically defensible turf in its quest to make a statement while getting past the censors, and generating box office. Of course Roundtree couldn't have done it without getting set up, in the opening credits and otherwise, with the single greatest theme song in the history of cinema. Fucking Rick Moranis would have looked bad if they called him Shaft with those sounds going off! Which brings me to one of my greatest personal observations: many have suggested that Led Zeppelin made mistakes, few of them musical. In fact my suspicion is that Robert Plant's greatest regret is his failure to sing along on the two occasions that Jimmy Page worked "Theme From Shaft" into the improvisational portion of "Dazed and Confused." I mean, fuck man, the lyrics were custom written for him!
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