SUPERFLY (1972)

Country: U.S.A.

Genre(s): Crime

Director: Gordon Parks, Jr.

Cast: Ron O’Neal / Carl Lee / Sheila Frazier

Plot

Drug dealer Youngblood Priest finds it’s time for him to get out of the game while he’s still alive and looks to pull off the million dollar deal that will help him get a fresh start.

What I Liked

Before I get into the details of the filmmaking, I have to hit on what ultimately is the strongest element of its film, the soundtrack.  Composed and performed by Curtis Mayfield, the “Superfly” soundtrack is one of the stand-out soul/funk classics of the 1970s and really one of the most iconic film soundtracks of the last half century.  Songs like the title track, “Freddie’s Dead” and “Pusherman” play virtually non-stop through the film, the smooth bass lines, wah-wah guitar, and Mayfield’s immaculate falsetto providing the perfect backdrop to the stylish and sexy action on screen.

Soundtrack aside, “Superfly” has other strong points.  It may not have been the first of the “Blaxploitation” films to hit theaters in the early seventies, but in many ways it could be viewed as the most mature.  The exterior scenes in particular, shot on location in the slums of New York, give the film an almost documentary-like authenticity.  The hookers, pimps, junkies, gangsters, dealers, and vagrants we see meandering the sidewalks as Ron O’Neal’s Eldorado cruises down the street are clearly not Hollywood artifices but the real deal.

Speaking of that wonderfully resplendent Eldorado, it’s just one example of another interesting facet of the film.  When anti-hero Priest isn’t making his way through the dangers and betrayals of the hood, he is always quick to separate and insulate himself from the streets.  His car, his apartment, and the apartments of his lovely and loyal concubines, all seem of a different world entirely.  Stylish, clean, and decorated with the trappings of ghetto success, they have nothing in common with the dirty, viscous world just outside the door.  The film does a good job of presenting these two opposite environments as corresponding to the duality in the nature of Priest himself, who is cold-blooded and selfish as anyone else in the movie but has ambitions beyond the limitations to which others thoughtlessly adhere.

What I Disliked

For all of its protagonist’s ambitions, the film never really breaks out of the limitations one would expect from low-budget Blaxploitation fare.  Though there is a funky sense of style to much of the directing and filmmaking, the editing borders on butchery, at times causing some characters to mysteriously appear and reappear in the same scene. Most of the characters outside of Priest aren’t developed beyond the point of scene decoration anyway, so I suppose having them vanish without explanation isn’t too big of a loss.

What really disappoints is the pathetically fake and mild climactic fight scene.  Not only is this one of those scenes where people are there one second and not there the next, the punches miss their targets by a mile, the choreography is dull, and the violence cartoonish in a bad way.  Certainly a let-down of expectations from a film that had thus far been focused primarily on grit and style.

Most Memorable Scene

Really, any of the scenes where Priest navigates the streets of New York, wheeling and dealing with Curtis Mayfield’s infectious sounds in cool pursuit are what absolutely make this movie.  They’re shot without audible dialogue, just focusing on style and groove, and it works perfectly.

My Rating: 3 out of 5