When films were foxy

A few months ago, Michael Campus, the director of the classic 1973 blaxploitation film “The Mack,” was having dinner with Snoop Dogg when the lanky rapper started acting out scenes from the movie. “He did everybody’s dialogue,” Campus says.

Def Jam’s Russell Simmons offered “The Mack” star Max Julien $10,000 for the flamboyant coat he wore in the film. “Ten- and 11-year-old kids right now know the lines from ‘The Mack,’ ” Julien says.

And it’s not just “The Mack” that has inspired filmmakers and hip-hop stars of today. Quentin Tarantino rediscovered the era’s female superstar, Pam Grier, and cast her in his 1997 hit “Jackie Brown.” Paramount scored a success with its 2000 remake of 1971’s “Shaft.” Other filmmakers and stars have poked affectionate fun at the era in such movies as “I’m Gonna Git You Sucka” and “Undercover Brother.”

This seminal era in American filmmaking is the subject of the Hollywood Entertainment Museum’s new exhibit, “Blaxploitation! African American Images From the 1970s,” which continues through April 5.

The term “blaxploitation,” which divided the African American community 30 years ago, still does. Many filmmakers hated the term, including Campus, who directed “The Mack” and “The Education of Sonny Carson.” To him, it implies that white filmmakers were cashing in on the black community.

“There were a lot of films that were, in fact, exploitive,” says Campus, who is white. “But as [actor] Richard Roundtree says about ‘Shaft’: Anything with [director] Gordon Parks can’t be exploitive.”

The label demeaned the work of writers, actors and directors, says Julien, who played Goldie, the pimp who runs the Oakland underworld in “The Mack.” He wrote other popular films from that era as well, most notably “Cleopatra Jones.”

“Most of our films had political content in them,” says Julien.

It was an African American named Junius Griffin who came up with the term “blaxploitation,” when in 1972 he complained in Variety about negative images in the just-released hit “Superfly” with Ron O’Neal.

It was the fruit of sour grapes; Griffin tried to get a job with Warner Bros. promoting the movie but was turned down, according to Julien. “The section that promotes films, even to this day, is called ‘exploitation,’ ” he explains. “This black man came up with the term and everybody just picked up on it. He [criticized ‘Superfly’] because they rejected him to promote ‘Superfly.’ ”

With this exhibit, Hollywood Entertainment Museum curator Jan-Christopher Horak is trying to draw a more complete picture of 1970s black cinema. The exhibit includes a vast array of stills from three of the best-known films of the era, “Shaft,” “Superfly” and “The Mack,” plus the musical “The Wiz” and dramas like “Sounder,” “Conrack” and “Lady Sings the Blues.” The exhibit also features posters from “Cleopatra Jones,” “Foxy Brown” and “Coffy” and even Julien’s coat from “The Mack.”

Horak has counted about 130 films made between 1970 and 1977 with African American themes. It’s a striking number.

Although low-budget “race” films were made for African American audiences in the first half of the 20th century, they all but disappeared after World War II. From the 1950s until 1970, Horak says, only Sidney Poitier or Harry Belafonte turned up among otherwise all-white casts.

“They were always the only African Americans in this white society,” Horak says. “They would not be threats to whites if they were in single units. With these films [from the ‘70s], you get films taking place in African American milieu, whether it be the middle class or the ghetto.”

A large percentage of the blaxploitation films did have “ghetto milieus and were crime-drug-gangster-type films,” he says. “But those weren’t the only kind of films made. There were comedies, westerns, musicals, romantic films, horror films. They really worked through the genres.”

In 1969, Gordon Parks became the first African American to direct a major studio movie, “The Learning Tree.” In the years that followed, Gordon Parks Jr., Sidney Poitier, Fred Williamson, Michael Schultz and others started directing these films for every major studio, along with the scrappy American International Pictures.

A major turning point was in 1971, when Melvin Van Peebles scored a huge success with his X-rated, independently made drama “Sweet Sweetback’s Baad-Asssss Song.”

Hollywood, Julien says, suddenly said, “Let’s go do black films and do them for $100,000 to $300,000 and turn a profit. And that’s how it continued until its demise.”

Those movies provided employment for an incredible number of actors and directors of color. By Horak’s count, 41% were directed by African Americans. “People were working, period,” says Campus. “Not just actors but people behind the camera, writers.”

By 1977, the boom was over. Too many derivative movies sucked the momentum out of the movement. And African American film stagnated, largely, until Spike Lee made “She’s Gotta Have It” in 1986.

In 1974, a year after “The Mack,” Campus made “Sonny Carson,” a serious drama about the youngest man ever to serve time in Sing Sing prison.

“I got rave reviews,” he says. “So there was a chance, a window, to do quality pictures, but then there was an avalanche of poor pictures that were just about making a buck that destroyed the era. If instead of going in that direction, people had turned to a greater sense of quality, I think everything would. But it didn’t happen, and it was doomed to die with the tag ‘blaxploitation.’ ”

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‘Blaxploitation! African American Images From the 1970s’

Where: Hollywood Entertainment Museum, 7021 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood

When: Thursdays through Tuesdays,

11 a.m.-6 p.m.

Ends: April 5

Price: $8.75 for adults; $5.50 for seniors; $4.50 for students; $4 for children 5-12; free for museum members and children younger than 5.

Info: (323) 465-7900 or www.hollywoodmuseum.com

Also: Director Michael Campus and writer-actor Max Julien are scheduled to appear March 18 at the museum at a seminar on the blaxploitation era.