#Super fly t.n.t. movie

O’Neal isn’t particularly charismatic or skillful, and director Gordon Parks Jr.’s style is amateurish: He spaces action scenes too far apart, employs utilitarian camerawork, and lingers on aimless bits like a poorly shot sex scene and a long montage of still photographs taken by his famous dad, Gordon Parks Sr., who kick-started the blaxploitation craze by directing Shaft (1971).Ī year after Super Fly scored at the box office, O’Neal returned to the character, and took over as director, for Super Fly T.N.T. But even with such vivid flourishes, Super Fly is slow going. The movie’s strongest elements are several driving funk/soul tunes by Curtis Mayfield, who performs onscreen in one sequence, and Priest’s pimp couture: silky mane, giant sideburns, Fu Manchu moustache, wide-brimmed hats, garish leisure suits, floor-length coats.

As Priest’s partner says in one of the picture’s best exchanges about the drug trade, “I know it’s a rotten game-it’s the only one the man left us to play, and that’s the stone cold truth.”

#Super fly t.n.t. movie

Vividly photographed on the streets of Harlem, the movie has atmosphere to spare, and the dialogue is so frozen-in-amber ’70s that almost every scene captures the period’s singular patois: “I got somethin’ real heavy to lay on you, man,” or “You don’t own me, pig, and no motherfucker tells me when I can split.” The storyline is nervy as hell, because the protagonist, Priest (Ron O’Neal), is an unapologetic coke dealer looking to make a giant score so he can leave hustling behind whereas many blaxploitation flicks feature righteous dudes trying to keep drugs off the streets, Super Fly makes a provocative sympathy-for-the-devil statement. Nevertheless, it is still a small part of his body of work and shows the interesting ways that people and movies can be historically linked to each other.Blaxploitation drama Super Fly has so much flavor and grit that it’s tempting to cut the picture slack despite its shortcomings.

(Amazon is selling a VHS video of the film, and if you are interested in this, Click Here.)Īlex Haley wrote only one movie screenplay during his career – “Super Fly T.N.T.” The movie has fallen into obscurity and is not mentioned in over 90% of Alex Haley’s biographies. This poor box office showing may be one of the reasons why you can’t find “Super Fly T.N.T.” on DVD, Blu-ray or even streaming at this time. And one critic even described it as a “wet firecracker.”

“Super Fly T.N.T.” was a flop at the box office. Some critics have described the storyline for “Super Fly TNT” as more thoughtful than the first “Super Fly” and have attributed this positive trait to Alex Haley. My speculation is that Alex Haley was offered the job because he was already known in literary circles as a talented African-American writer and was willing to accept the challenge of quickly writing this movie sequel. This was before he became famous for Roots and after he had already published The Autobiography of Malcolm X. How Alex Haley came to write this screenplay is a mystery. The internationally-acclaimed author Alex Haley who won a special Pulitzer Prize for his book Roots and who is also known for classic bestseller, The Autobiography of Malcolm X wrote the story for Super Fly T.N.T. stands for is the surprising connection between this movie and legendary African-American author Alex Haley.Īlex Haley wrote the screenplay for Super Fly T.N.T. mean? It stands for “Taint no Trouble” which was a favorite expression of Super Fly’s lead character, Priest (played by Ron O’Neal), and reflects the hip lingo of the time.īut even more interesting than what T.N.T. One little known fact about seventies Blaxploitation film “Super Fly” is that there was a sequel to this movie named “Super Fly T.N.T.”