Shaft in Africa (1973)

The second movie in the Shaft series ('Shaft's Big Score!') was a big disappointment being a tired retread of the dynamic first Shaft movie, a film which basically created the blaxploitation boom of the early 1970s. 'Shaft In Africa' sees director Gordon Parks and creator/writer Ernest Tidyman replaced by John Guillermin and Stirling Silliphant, a safer more Hollywood team which would hit pay dirt the following year with 'The Towering Inferno'. It doesn't have much of a blaxploitation feel to it, it's more of a James Bond thing with a black Bond, but that's okay, it's entertaining enough, and a definite improvement on the lacklustre 'Shaft's Big Score!' Richard Roundtree once again plays super cool private dick John Shaft. This time he is coerced into going undercover in Africa to try and break a slavery ring run by the evil Amafi (Frank Finlay). Roundtree is one cool mutha, and this movie features more sex and violence than the others, so it's easy to watch. Vonetta McGee ('Hammer', 'Blacula') plays Shaft's main love interest, but he also finds time to bed Amafi's sexy and amoral mistress Jazar (Neda Arneric) along the way. It's a pity that there weren't more Shaft movies after this as you could see the series having a lot of life left in it. Instead Richard Roundtree made a TV series which lasted a couple of years, and then his career started to slide into obscurity. By the 1980s he was mostly playing supporting cop roles in dumb action movies. Why this happened is anybody's guess as Roundtree was, along with Fred Williamson, the coolest and most charismatic of the 1970s blaxploitation stars. Both actors deserved a lot more mainstream success.