"Hotter than Bond, cooler than Bullitt"

“Ghetto kids were coming downtown to see their hero, Shaft, and here was a Black man on the screen they didn’t have to be ashamed of. We need movies about the history of our people, yes, but we need heroic fantasies about our people, too. We all need a little James Bond now and then.”

Gordon Parks (1972)

- image of Richard Roundtree (1942-2023) via 

- "Hotter than Bond, cooler than Bullitt!" was the blurb on the paperback the film was based on (via)