Shaft

This was the second feature of the longtime still photographer Parks, in which he brought together talent for capturing an image and personal knowledge of life on the streets to create a hard-hitting action thriller. Roundtree plays a private detective hired by Harlem mobster Gunn to find his kidnapped daughter. This requires infiltrating the mob before finding the girl. St. John plays the black militant who assists Roundtree, and Cioffi is the cop who helps keep a gangland war from escalating. Although obvious racial tensions are created, these are kept under check by Parks, who concentrated on the humanistic elements in his character.