Dig these classics

By STEVE PERSALL, Times Film Critic

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 16, 2000

Check your local video stores and cable TV channels for these blaxploitation classics:

SWEET SWEETBACK'S BAADASSSSS SONG (1971): Melvin Van Peebles broke the rules, if not the bank, with this angry allegory of African-American sexual myths, oppression and overdue revenge. Sweetback (played by Van Peebles) spends most of the movie running for his life from racists. Dedicated to "all the brothers and sisters who have had enough of The Man." Audiences and filmmakers rallied around that challenge.

SHAFT (1971): You hear John Shaft before you see him, through Isaac Hayes' sizzling high-hat cymbals and wakka-wakka guitar. Richard Roundtree lived up to the introduction as a New York detective straddling a mob war.

SUPERFLY (1972): John Shaft was still too friendly with The Man for some tastes. The flip side was Youngblood Priest, a cocaine dealer making one last score before going straight. Curtis Mayfield's music and the film's anti-police leanings made Superfly an instant urban classic.

COOLEY HIGH (1975): Not all blaxploitation films were violent or sexy. Michael Schultz crafted a tender, inner-city American Graffiti with black students coming of age circa 1964. It later inspired the What's Happening! TV sitcom.

COTTON COMES TO HARLEM (1970): The first moderately successful studio release of the blaxploitation era with a then-respectable $5.1-million take. Detectives Gravedigger Jones (Godfrey Cambridge) and Coffin Ed Johnson (Raymond St. Jacques) investigate a clergyman selling bogus trips to Africa to poor people.

COFFY (1973): Women were usually victims in blaxploitation movies. Pam Grier changed all that. Coffy saved her little sister from heroin addiction by any violent means necessary. Some feminists hailed a bold new screen image while others clucked over Grier's sexy ways.

THE MACK (1973): Max Julien makes mad money as a pimp named Goldie while corrupt cops and rival gangstas plot revenge. The title still works as hip-hop lingo for a ladies' man. The Mack-of-the-Year scene is a hilarious fashion flashback.

WATERMELON MAN (1970): Melvin Van Peebles tipped his rebellious hand early with this satire of race relations. Wearing ghastly makeup, Godfrey Cambridge plays a bigoted white insurance salesman. Without explanation, he wakes up as a black man and faces a new, segregated life. Largely ignored until Sweet Sweetback became a cult hit.

[Photo: United Artists] Detectives Gravedigger Jones (Godfrey Cambridge, right) and Coffin Ed Johnson (Raymond St. Jacques) star in Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970), one of the first “blaxploitation” films with box office bang.

TROUBLE MAN (1972): Robert Hooks as a heavily armed "fixer" had higher style and body count than Slaughter, Truck Turner or any other brother against the Mob. Marvin Gaye's theme song was one of the best of the genre.

CAR WASH (1976): The funniest film of the genre had considerable crossover appeal to white audiences. Richard Pryor was classic as a sly preacher fleecing his flock. Great music. Whatever happened to Rose Royce, anyway?