Shaft and French Connection 1971

[Phil Dragoo]

Philip J. Sneed, president of Unity Bank & Trust, 416 Warren Street, Roxbury, Mass.

Six-two, two-and-a-quarter, karate, weightlifting, well-turned out in a suit of the time--black, not Lord & Taylor.

At the employees meeting, sixty-two, two whites, yours truly and Shirley running the posting machine in bookkeeping, Mr. Sneed says:

"Sneed don't take no shit from nobody, walkin' or ridin', slippin' or slidin'."

He would visit the various departments and when Mr. Sneed said, "Good morning," everyone said, "Good morning."

One day Nita told Audrey across my space which was dialed back to our new friend status,

"Audrey, some crazy n(and she said it, had the license to say it) tried to rob Mr. Sneed's bank."

This had been the scuffle in the lobby above us.

The police were notified after the takedown.

~ ~ ~

As for The French Connection, police were either hicks, as in, "How about this guy, what's his name--does he need the stuff?" Barney Fife didn't understand the difference between weed and smack;

or, in the alternative, some kind of sideburns, turtleneck, medallion nark, "I don't want to make a scene, but I'm willing to buy a nickel bag."

On the street Ray Charles' stunt double in shades and trenchcoat flanked by his doubles distinguished by fedoras pause to offer Jacoby Fenner's little buddy Check-Check, "I got some good junk, Man."

Imagine: what a future, there in the Village, having pawned everything, reduced to hustling tourists for handouts.

For that injection.

Historic visits to Burma. Whatever for.

[Magda Hassan]

I see it was directed by Ivan Dixon of Hogan's Heroes fame. They never had any Soviet prisoners of war in their camp....or even mentioned them....like they just didn't even exist....

Looks great Keith. Now I'll have to look for the rest of it. Sam Greenlee certainly led an 'interesting' life.

I own one Blaxploitation movie.It's about a black cia agent who gets fed up with the agency abuse and decides to train a guerilla army to fight back.I imagine the agency didn't much like this movie at all,and probably tried to supress it at the time..I see that the whole movie is on Youtube now.

Keith - that's great.

I see the film was released in 1973 - perfect timing for the false flag Cinque and the Symbionese Liberation Army.

The book was published in 1969, written by Sam Greenlee, of whom wiki tells us:

Sam Greenlee (born July 13, 1930) is an African-American writer, best known for his controversial novel The Spook Who Sat by the Door, first published in London by Allison & Busby in March 1969, and was chosen as The Sunday Times Book of the Year.[1] The novel was subsequently made into the 1973 movie of the same name, directed by Ivan Dixon and co-produced and written by Greenlee.[2]

Life and work

Born in Chicago, Greenlee attended the University of Wisconsin (BS, political science, 1952) and the University of Chicago (1954-7). He is a member of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity. He served in the military (1952-4), earning the rank of first lieutenant, and subsequently worked for the United States Information Agency, serving in Iraq (in 1958 he was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal for bravery during the Baghdad revolution), Pakistan, Indonesia, and Greece between 1957 and 1965.[3] Leaving the US foreign service after eight years, he stayed on in Greece. He undertook further study (1963-4) at the University of Thessaloniki, and lived for three years on the island of Mykonos, where he began to write his first novel. That was eventually published in 1969 as The Spook Who sat by the Door, the story of a black man who is recruited as a CIA agent and having mastered the skills of a spy then uses them to lead a black guerrilla movement in the US.[4][5] In 2011, an independent documentary film entitled Infiltrating Hollywood: The Rise and Fall of the Spook Who Sat by the Door was filmed by Christine Acham and Clifford Ward, about the making and reception of the Spook film.[6]

Other works by Greenlee include Baghdad Blues, a 1976 novel based on his experiences traveling in Iraq in the 1950s, Blues for an African Princess, a 1971 collection of poems, and Ammunition (poetry, 1975). In 1990 Greenlee was the Illinois poet laureate. He also wrote the screenplay for a film short called Lisa Trotter (2010), a story adapted from Aristophanes' Lysistrata.[7]
Bibliography

Novels

The Spook Who Sat by the Door, London: Allison & Busby, 1969.
Baghdad Blues, New York: Bantam, 1976.

Poetry

Blues for an African Princess, Chicago: Third World Press, 1971.
Ammunition!: Poetry and Other Raps (introduction Andrew Salkey), London: Bogle-L'Ouverture, 1975.
Be-Bop Man/Be-Bop Woman, 1968-1993: Poetry and Other Raps, Cambrea Heights, NY: Natiki, 1995.

References

^ Chris Routledge, "Sam Greenlee Biography - Novel Became Cult Favorite, Enjoyed Brief Revival, Selected writings"
^ IMDb (Internet Movie Database).
^ Contemporary African American Novelists: A Bio-Bibliographical Sourcebook, ed. Emmanuel S. Nelson, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999.
^ Rosaling Cummings, "Local Lit: the relaxed rage of Sam Greenlee", Chicago Reader, April 14, 1994.
^ DeWayne Wickham, "Sam Greenlee's Book Is Still Making a Statement", ChickenBones: A Journal for Literary & Artistic African-American Themes.
^ "Infiltrating Hollywood: The Rise and Fall of the Spook Who Sat by the Door", IMDb.
^ Lisa Trotter page at IMDb.

This certainly deserves further research.

If nothing else, we know that the spooks are extremely, ahem, opportunistic.....

[Magda Hassan]

I tried to down load Shaft but, ahem, will make sure next time there are no minors in the room when I go searching....it was quite alarming....So it will have to wait as my memory is too long gone to be of much use there.

We can't have that Magda.

Here, for your viewing pleasure, is the intro to Shaft.



:dancingman:

Thank you Jan! I was looking for Jane Fonda in the credits but she wasn't in this was she? I think it was Klute with Sutherland and Scheider I am getting mixed up with.

[David Guyatt]

I was also impressed by Roy Snyder in this film too. For me his performance in The Marathon Man was also excellent.

But I have a question. I recall a scene where Doyle and his partner were present in the Cocabanana nightclub eyeing wise guys and it was there where he got a lead. I've Googled but can't find any mention of this in the film's locations etc. Am I mis-remembering?

I certainly hope not, because I was so taken with the film at the time, that on a business visit to Manhattan in the late 1970's, I even spent an evening in the Cocabanana chewing a burned steak and listening to a second rate band. Very disappointing.

[Magda Hassan]

I was also impressed by Roy Snyder in this film too. For me his performance in The Marathon Man was also excellent.

But I have a question. I recall a scene where Doyle and his partner were present in the Cocabanana nightclub eyeing wise guys and it was there where he got a lead. I've Googled but can't find any mention of this in the film's locations etc. Am I mis-remembering?

I certainly hope not, because I was so taken with the film at the time, that on a business visit to Manhattan in the late 1970's, I even spent an evening in the Cocabanana chewing a burned steak and listening to a second rate band. Very disappointing.

No it was there. In the wiki for the Three Degrees, the girl band singing in the club it is mentioned too:

1970s
[edit]

By 1970 they were signed to Roulette Records and they released their first album, Maybe.[SUP][1][/SUP] The title song, this time with Valerie Holiday taking the lead vocals, took them to #4 on the US R&B charts. The singles "I Do Take You" and "You're The Fool" followed, as did their second album, So Much Love. This success landed them a cameo appearance in the 1971 film, The French Connection, filmed during one of their appearances at the Copacabana nightclub in New York, and also an engagement at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada with Engelbert Humperdinck.[SUP][1][/SUP]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Degrees

[David Guyatt]

Thanks for that Magda. Phew! No need to get some anti-Dementia pills from the doctor today.

[Jan Klimkowski]

But I have a question. I recall a scene where Doyle and his partner were present in the Cocabanana nightclub eyeing wise guys and it was there where he got a lead. I've Googled but can't find any mention of this in the film's locations etc. Am I mis-remembering?

I certainly hope not, because I was so taken with the film at the time, that on a business visit to Manhattan in the late 1970's, I even spent an evening in the Cocabanana chewing a burned steak and listening to a second rate band. Very disappointing.

As Magda says, the band was The Three Degrees, whilst Hackman and Schneider spot some dodgy dealings.

You can see a snatch of the scene in The French Connection trailer I posted above in post #9, about 25 seconds in.

[Phil Dragoo]

The French Connection -- Video Tribute

[Magda Hassan]

Bad Santa. anta:

[Jan Klimkowski]

Hackman is a brilliant actor - from his gritty cynicism in Mississippi Burning through to his role as Sgt. Johnny Gallagher in the excellent film The Package, he is pure quality.

Can you imagine how different the movie would have been with a bigger budget and minus Hackman?

Though the cast ultimately proved to be one of the film's greatest strengths, Friedkin had problems with casting choices from the start. He was strongly opposed to the choice of Hackman for the lead, and actually first considered Paul Newman (out of the budget range), then Jackie Gleason, Peter Boyle and a New York columnist, Jimmy Breslin, who had never acted before.[4] However, Gleason, at that time, was considered box-office poison by the studio after his film Gigot had flopped several years before, Boyle declined the role after disapproving of the violent theme of the film, and Breslin refused to get behind the wheel of a car, which was required of Popeye's character for an integral car chase scene. Steve McQueen was also considered, but he did not want to do another police film after Bullitt and, as with Newman, his fee would have exceeded the movie's budget. Tough guy Charles Bronson was also considered for the role. Friedkin almost settled for Rod Taylor (who had actively pursued the role, according to Hackman), another choice the studio approved, before he went with Hackman.