Shaftan Episode Guide
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aired from: Oct 1973 to: Feb 1974 | 7 eps, 4 features |
CBS | 90 min | mono | ________________ |
regulars:
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Production Credits
Executive producer: Allan Balter
Producer: William Read Woodfield
Developed for TV by: William Read Woodfield and Allan Balter
Music: Johnny Pate
Theme Music: Isaac Hayes
Based on the character created by: Ernest Tidyman
Detective John Shaft is summoned by the wife of a lawyer friend when her husband fails to return home after successfully defending a man accused of slaying a police officer. Later, the lawyer and his client are fished out of the river, the latest additions to a burgeoning list of similar murders that have stumped police Lieutenant Al Rossi for months. Shaft discovers all the victims, with the exception of his friend, are individuals of bad repute who escaped prosecution. Acting on the hunch that a vigilante group or individual is responsible for the killings, his investigation leads him to Marshal Cunningham whose wife's rapist was murdered after being acquitted. Shaft discovers Mrs. Cunningham has been in a mental hospital since the brutal attack, and then the detective is gunned down outside the institution after learning she is practically a hopeless case. After recovering from his bullet wound, Shaft stakes out Cunningham and watches him force at gunpoint a notorious pimp to drive to an exclusive athletic club. Spying through a window, Shaft sees a group of prominent citizens, including Det Sgt Turner and Judge McCormick, try the man in a Kangaroo court and then execute him in a basement firing range before he can stop them. In daring grandstand style, Shaft proceeds to capture the group, only after he, too, is sentenced to die by the self-appointed executioners.
b: 9 Oct 73 pc: 103 w: William Read Woodfield, Allan Balter d: John Llewellyn MoxeyDetective John Shaft is shocked when a girlfriend, Diana Richie, turns up in a hospital badly beaten. She has become a prostitute and, though she won't admit it to police, her pimp, Sonny Bruckner, and his strong-arm brother, Kyle, are the ones who worked her over. Shaft takes Diana under wing, gets her a new job and new apartment. To celebrate her first day at work, Shaft takes Diana to a restaurant where Sonny confronts him. After Sonny threatens Diana if she does not return to his fold, Shaft threatens Sonny. Later that evening, Sonny confronts Shaft in the restaurant parking lot. They fight and Shaft emerges victorious with scuffed knuckles as battle scars. That night Sgt. Duff interrupts Shaft's sleep. Sonny has been murdered and Shaft is accused. Although Diana can provide Shaft with an ironclad alibi, she mysteriously disappears. Out on bail, Shaft begins an arduous search for the girl. Kyle and his hood sidekick, Archie McGill, also hunt for Diana, but Shaft finds her first and persuades her to testify. In court, Diana begins to crack on the stand under the intense glares of Kyle and Archie. Fearing for her life, she flees the court building and Shaft has to jump bail to track her down. By this time Shaft suspects Kyle of killing his own brother to take over the prostitute ring and it becomes a deadly race between the two to see which one finds Diana first.
b: 30 Oct 73 pc: 105 w: Ellis Marcus d: Nicholas ColasantoA friend, Paul Hanson, asks Shaft to help Tom Oliver's son, David, who is accused of killing Eddie Simmons in a hit-run accident with a stolen car. Eddie's boss Clifford Grayson, owner of a private club/gambling casino, warns Shaft to get off the case when the detective quizzes him for facts about Eddie. Shaft looks to the owner of the stolen car, Marcus Lowell, for clues but comes up empty. Upon leaving Lowell's apartment, Shaft is beaten unconscious by Grayson's thugs and left under Ann Lowell's car. He comes to just in time to keep Ann from running over him and has her take him to Eddie's apartment. There he finds a list of names imprinted on a blotter and after contacting those listed, discovers Eddie was a much-hated "collector" of gambling debts for Grayson. Eddie has used strong-arm tactics to blackmail his victims into paying him two or three times more than they owed Grayson. Shaft suspects Grayson had Eddie killed because of his "skimming". Suddenly a witness shows up claiming to have seen David driving the death car. Shaft forces him to reveal Lowell has put him up to telling the fake story. Shaft then persuades Grayson to let him have Eddie's old job and finds his first "account payable" is Lowell, a big loser at the club. He confronts Lowell who admits he saw Eddie's murder when he went to pay him some blackmail money. With Lowell's promise to co-operate, Shaft devises a daring plan with Lt Al Rossi to bust open Grayson's fortified club from the inside in order to get the gambler's account ledger, the evidence needed to prove his guilt.
b: 20 Nov 73 pc: 104 w: Ken Kolb d: Harry HarrisThree white men disguised as blacks break into the home of banker Elliot Williamson and kidnap his wife, Nancy. Before leaving, they warn him against calling the police and tell him to get in touch with private detective John Shaft. Shaft, who has no knowledge of the kidnapping, arrives at Williamson's house just before they receive a phone call with ransom instructions. Williamson and Shaft are to go to Williamson's bank at 10am, fill a briefcase with $250,000 in cash, and then Shaft is to take it to a nearby town and wait at a phone booth for additional instructions. A deputy Sheriff becomes suspicious when he sees Shaft driving the banker's luxurious car and sirens him to stop. Shaft is forced to overpower the deputy and flee on foot. Meanwhile an all points bulletin is put out for his arrest. Shaft reaches a farmhouse where he convinces a boy, Matthew Potter, that he is not a criminal, and persuades the boy to drive him to the crucial phone booth. They arrive too late, however, but Shaft manages to make contact with the kidnappers from his hiding place in a schoolhouse. Lt Al Rossi learns of Shaft's troubles and arrives in time to help the local sheriff come to the aid of Shaft, who is in a deadly showdown with the kidnappers.
b: 11 Dec 73 pc: 101 w: William Read Woodfield, Allan Balter d: Alexander SingerJohn Shaft is asked by a former high school classmate to help her husband, Police Officer Jerry Tyler, who has been accused of taking bribes. Shaft believes Tyler's story of a frame up by a bar owner, Larry Doyle and his stooge, Brock, but decides it isn't his bag. Instead he offers to seek help from his police department pal, Lt Al Rossi, who agrees to work on it undercover. When Rossi is badly shot up by some hoodlums, Shaft decides the case is now his personal baby. Information supplied by a former cop, Tom Donegan, helps Shaft infiltrate Doyle's gang and he soon participates in some car theft jobs. He passes his findings on to Police Captain Brewster, who promises to follow through. Continuing his work with the car theft ring, Shaft finds himself at a waterfront warehouse where the stolen cars are being readied for shipment to South America. Just when he thinks he has the case cracked wide open, Shaft finds himself caught in a double cross that almost costs him his life.
b: 1 Jan 74 pc: 102 w: Ken Kolb d: Lee PhillipsGil Kirkwood, a financier in deep corporate trouble, fakes his own death in a fire which was also meant to kill his own wife, Joanna, who is independently wealthy. With his wife dead, and himself presumed dead, Kirkwood hoped to escape to South America with $3 million in diamonds from her safe deposit box. John Shaft, who has previously done investigations for Joanne's father, is called into the case. He accompanies her to a bank where she discovers her safety deposit box empty and the diamonds missing. The only other person who knew where she kept the diamonds was an old friend of the family, Frank Lucas, but Shaft discovers Lucas' phone has been tapped and someone undoubtedly overheard their phone discussions about the diamonds. A business associate, J L Teague and Harry Praeger, the professional killer they hire to commit the intended arson-murder visit Kirkwood at his hiding place. At the hideout an expert is recutting the diamonds, but as soon as he finished he is slain. Shaft and his NYPD pal, Lt Al Rossi, are suddenly confronted with three more homicides, and a trail of violence and greed that doesn't end until there is one more killing as a getaway plane warms up at the airport.
b: 29 Jan 74 pc: 106 w: Ellis Marcus d: Allen ReisnerJohn Shaft, who will be best man, accompanies his friends, Laura Parks and Gerald Wallace to City Hall for their wedding ceremony. Shaft lets them off at the entrance and drives his car to the parking garage. At this moment Lt Al Rossi, is supervising the removal of a heavily guarded van with a witness whose successful testimony before a grand jury can convict an underworld kingpin. Suddenly a man who was supposedly one of the police guarding the witness, but who is actually Richard Quayle, a professional killer, tosses a grenade into the group. The witness is killed and so is Gerald Wallace. Rossi is wounded. Shaft encounters the escaping assassin in the garage and empties his gun futilely at the fugitive's car. After learning of Gerald's death, Shaft vows revenge and goes about setting himself up as a target by spreading the word he can identify the killer. Quayle, who poses as an insurance man in a quiet suburban neighborhood, eludes a trap set by Rossi, but Shaft gets onto his trail and follows him to his home. Here he finds Quayle's cache of death dealing equipment and using one of the assassin's own weapons metes out swift justice.
b: 19 Feb 74 pc: 107 w: William Read Woodfield d: Lawrence DobkinBack to TOP of Page |
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John Shaft is the ultimate in suave black detectives. He first finds himself up against Bumpy, the leader of the Black crime mob, then against Black nationals, and finally working with both against the White Mafia who are trying to blackmail Bumpy by kidnapping his daughter.
Summary written by John Vogel
When Shaft finds out that a dead friend ran a numbers racket out of his legitimate business and left $200,000 unaccounted for, he knows why he has suddenly found himself in the middle of a war between rival thugs. These goons are all trying to take over the territory of the dead man as well as get their hands on the missing 200 grand. Shaft has all he can handle trying to track down the money and, at the same time, keep his friend's widow from the clutches of the hoods.
Summary written by Alfred Jingle
John Shaft is persuaded by threats of physical force, the promise of money, and the lure of a pretty tutor, to assume the identity of a native-speaking itinerant worker in Africa. His job is to help break a racket that is smuggling immigrants into Europe then exploiting them. But the villains have heard that he is on his way.
Summary written by Jeremy Perkins
When spoiled college kid Walter Wade kills a young black student, John Shaft makes the arrest. Walter skips bail and flees the country, and after two years of waiting, Shaft hauls him back into custody as Walter secretly returns to the States. But when Walter's wealthy father posts bail once again, Walter is back out on the streets and looking to put Shaft in a body bag. So are two of Shaft's corrupt colleagues as well as a Dominican drug lord who wants revenge on Shaft for humiliating him in the neighborhood he rules. For backup, Shaft has only his two closest pals: Carmen, a colleague on the police force; and his streetwise confidant, Rasaan. Meanwhile, Shaft has got to track down the one murder witness who can put all of his enemies away for good even as the toughest killers in the city close in on him.
b: 16 Jun 00 pc: _________ w: John Singleton d: John Singleton NOTE: Check out the entry in the Internet Movie Database.Back to TOP of Page |
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