Shaft in Africa (1973) on Netflix
R19731h 52mActionAdventureCrimeThriller
Tranquilized in his New York apartment, John Shaft is kidnapped and persuaded to go undercover in Africa. He must pose as an itinerant worker and break a ring smuggling immigrants into Europe.
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- Netflix3.1/5
- IMDb5.9/103,486 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes64%
Trailer
Plot summary
John Shaft is tranquilized in his own New York apartment and taken. Threats of force, the promise of money and the offer of a tutor persuade him to travel to Africa, where he is to pass as an itinerant worker who speaks an indigenous language. The assignment is to help break the criminal ring that smuggles immigrants into Europe and then exploits them, and word of his arrival has already reached the men he is after. Before he is hired, he must survive a test: a small overheated room with no water and a floor of deep sand meant to mimic the conditions he will meet in Africa.
Cast
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Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Shaft in Africa (1973)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Screenwriter Stirling Silliphant drew the story from a newspaper article he read in 1971 about a truck crossing from Italy into France with 30 Africans smuggled inside, bound for virtually unpaid labor.
- Ethiopia was the setting for only the third film ever shot there, according to producer Roger Lewis, after The Sailor from Gibraltar and A Season in Hell, and stars Richard Roundtree and Vonetta McGee were presented to Emperor Hailie Selassie shortly before filming.
- The third Shaft film was made without the involvement of the character's creator and screenwriter, Ernest Tidyman, who disliked the direction Hollywood was taking Shaft and turned instead to the novels, a newspaper strip and other projects.
