The success of Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, Shaft, and Superfly snapped the industry moguls to attention. Soon black films began turning up with startling regularity. Sometimes it even looked as if the same movies were being remade time and again. First there was The Legend of Nigger Charley (1972), then The Soul of Nigger Charley (1973). There were Black Caesar (1973), Black Sampson (1974), Black Jesus (1971), and Sweet Jesus, Preacher Man (1973). There were Slaughter and Slaughter's Big Rip Off (1973, an appropriate title if there ever was one), also Blacula and Scream, Blacula, Scream (1973). There were also The Bus is Coming (1971), Top of the Heap (1972), The Final Countdown (1972), Hit Man (1972), Cool Breeze (1972), Detroit 9000 (1973), The Black Godfather (1974), and The Mack (1973).
What became most disturbing was that while these movies appeared to be black (in concept, in outlook, in feel) and while they were feverishly promoted and advertised as such, they actually were no such thing. Many of the new black-oriented films were written, directed, and produced by whites…. Worse, many of the new movies were often shot on shoestring budgets, were badly directed, and were technically poor. The film industry hoped simply to make money by indeed exploiting an audience need. Eventually, there was the rise of what came to be known as the blaxploitation film: a movie that
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