Celebrating 65 Years Of Richard Roundtree Sticking It To The Man

One of my favorite actors turns sixty-five today and I thought I would offer up a little tribute for him.
Since making his starring debut in Gordon Park's SHAFT in 1971, Richard Roundtree has been one of our most reliable, talented and unbelievably cool actors. With well over 100 films and tv appearances in his filmography, the New York born Roundtree has also been one of the most prolific actors of the past three decades.
Although he had a small role in 1970's WHAT DO YOU SAY TO A NAKED LADY, it was as detective John Shaft in 1971 that would mark Roundtree's introduction to film audiences all over the world. It is hard to over-emphasize the importance of SHAFT and Roundtree's performance in the film, and if it indeed has overshadowed the rest of his career then that only shows just how truly iconic it is.
SHAFT could have been just another early seventies cop picture starring any number of popular white male actors but talented photographer and director Gordon Parks had something else in mind. From the legendary sounds of Isaac Hayes score to Parks influential and kinetic directorial style, SHAFT remains a mind-blowing and door kicking down film. Much of the credit for the film's phenomenal success is due to Roundtree himself, who would not only give a a great performance but would provide a much needed positive and strong role model for kids of all colors all over the world. There had certainly been strong African American portrayals on the screen before Richard Roundtree as John Shaft but his success as a leading man, sex symbol and strong dramatic force was a triple play that few actors, black or white, had matched before or since. John Shaft is one of the most important, if often overlooked, characters in American film history.

Roundtree worked constantly throughout the seventies in films ranging from the SHAFT sequels and tv series to the big budget disaster film EARTHQUAKE to the interesting DIAMONDS and the ambitious A GAME FOR VULTURES.
James Fargo's A GAME FOR VULTURES really showed Roundtree attempting to escape the John Shaft persona and it remains one of his great performances even though the film is flawed. The film's failure could have hurt Roundtree but he didn't let it and he continued to work constantly throughout the eighties.
Highlights from Roundtree's second decade as one of our great leading men and character actors include Larry Cohen's awesome Q, the fun Fred Williamson collaborations ONE DOWN, TWO TO GO and THE BIG SCORE and William Lustig's fine MANIAC COP.
Even a cancer scare in 1993 couldn't slow Richard down and he continued to appear in many films and television roles throughout the decade, including a great spot in David Fincher's SEVEN and the underrated Larry Cohen picture ORIGINAL GANGSTAS.
Richard gives a really fantastic performance in ORIGINAL GANGSTAS and the sight of him, Fred Williamson, Pam Grier, Jim Brown and Ron Oneal in the same film still brings a smile to my face. This effective little film is deserving of much more attention than has been granted to it.
This decade began with the news that SHAFT was going to be remade. What could have been disastrous was actually handled very well by director John Singleton. Instead of a straight remake the film was a continuation, with Samuel L. Jackson playing the nephew of the original John Shaft. Richard had been a hero to both Jackson and Singleton and the new SHAFT was a splendid tribute to not only the original film but also to how much the character had meant to kids in the seventies. Roundtree would appear in the film, as would original director Gordon Parks, and essentially steal every scene he was in. His scenes with Jackson in Singleton's very solid film remain some of the best and most effective of his career.
Since the new SHAFT, the Golden Globe nominated Richard Roundtree has continued to work constantly and he remains at sixty five one of the most beautiful and best Actors in American cinema. I wish him a very happy birthday and many more years of success on and off the screen.

Daddy's Gone A-Hunting

I have been preparing to do a long piece on the late Carol White and lately I have been trying to see as many films of hers as I can. Last night I finally got to see Mark Robson's follow up to VALLEY OF THE DOLLS (1967), the very strange and heavily flawed DADDY'S GONE A-HUNTING from 1969.
Carol, looking quite stunning here, stars as Cathy Palmer, a young woman from London who has recently moved to San Francisco to pursue an art career. She immediately meets and becomes involved with a strange young man named Kenneth, played with by a miscast Scott Hylands. Kenneth comes across as an immediate oddball and one wonders why Cathy would be at all drawn to this irritating and obviously unstable man.
Cathy becomes pregnant right around the time she realizes that Kenneth is totally hopeless and has an illegal abortion. She soon meets the aspiring politician Jack Byrnes, played by the always great Paul Burke, and attempts to start a new life. This is harder than she thinks as Kenneth, obsessed by the idea that she killed his baby, begins stalking her.

DADDY'S GONE A-HUNTING has a very effective first hour which is helped immensely by the creepy San Francisco location shooting, a remarkable John Williams score and Robson's stylish direction. Carol White is extremely good in the first hour of the film as well and she portrays Cathy's confusion and fear remarkably well. Hylands Kenneth though is a weak link all the way through. Hyland isn't creepy enough to be truly frightening and more than anything else he is just remarkably annoying.
The film really loses its footing in the last 45 minutes when Robson throws anything resembling logic right out the window. The screenplay, credited amazingly enough to Larry Cohen and Lorenzo Semple Jr., is filled with so many lapses and holes that finally the whole thing feels like an exercise in stupidity. The police in this are particularly dense and I found myself literally talking to the screen in the last half hour in a futile attempt to force the characters to do the most obvious and simple acts.
Major problems with the second half aside, DADDY'S GONE A-HUNTING is still effective enough in the first hour to give a slight recommendation to. Robson routinely makes ill judged choices but his films are always interesting to watch. The cinematography and color photography by Ernest Laszlo is very striking all the way through and like I said previously, this early score by John Williams is really fine. The theme song, sung by Lyn Roman with lyrics by Dory Previn, is extremely effective and works very well for the film.
This is an extremely off-kilter and odd film. At one point a strange reference is made to Ken Loach's remarkable CATHY COME HOME (1966) that had starred Carol White and there is also an uncomfortable feeling that the film is some sort of weird pro-life manifesto, even though the abortion is only really handled as a plot device.
One wonders if the screenplay by the usually reliable Cohen and Semple was messed with somewhere along the way. Semple Jr. had just penned the amazing PRETTY POISON (1968) and was getting ready to embark on a decade filled with always interesting work ranging from THE PARALLAX VIEW (1974) to KING KONG (1976).
Cohen, of course, was just a few years away from his amazing work in the Seventies and Eighties which would find him writing and directing some of the best exploitation films ever.
Mark Robson would pass away less than a decade after DADDY'S GONE A-HUNTING and it is one of his last notable films with only four flawed features following it. The lovely, talented and finally tragic Carol White, just in her late twenties in 1969, was getting ready to fight some major personal demons and would manage to make less than a dozen more films before passing away of liver disease just after her fiftieth birthday in 1991.
DADDY'S GONE A-HUNTING is currently out of print and is pretty hard to find, as our most of Carol White's films. It is a troubling and flawed film but one worth at least giving a look to. It is never less than interesting and one of the last films we have that features the talented Carol White still at the peak of her powers.

My tribute to the late Carol White will be appearing soon.