Superbly directed by Gordon Parks (who makes a Hitchcockian onscreen appearance), Shaft was one of the seminal black dramas of the 1970s and is notable for its mesmerizing, Oscar-winning Isaac Hayes score, seamless action sequences, the uniformly fine acting of the film’s ensemble, and an absorbing script about the Mafia abduction of a Harlem mob boss’s daughter. Richard Roundtree surprised the critics with his complex portrayal of the confident black private eye Shaft, capable of holding his own with a white police detective, or going eyeball-to-eyeball with formidable Harlem underworld king Bumpy Jonas.