Super Fly (1972)

User Rating:

6.2/10   

Director:

Gordon Parks Jr.

Writer:

Phillip Fenty (writer)

Release Date:

4 August 1972 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Crime | Drama

Tagline:

Never a dude like this one! He's got a plan to stick it to The Man!

Plot:

Super Fly is a cocaine dealer who begins to realize that his life will soon end with either prison or his death...

Plot Keywords:

Drugs | Racial Slur | African American | Convertible | Racism

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Ron O'Neal	...	Priest
Carl Lee	...	Eddie
Sheila Frazier	...	Georgia (as Shiela Frazier)
Julius Harris	...	Scatter
Charles McGregor	...	Fat Freddie (as Charles MacGregor)
Nate Adams	...	Dealer
Polly Niles	...	Cynthia
Yvonne Delaine	...	Mrs. Freddie
Henry Shapiro	...	Robbery Victim
K.C.	...	Pimp
James G. Richardson	...	Junkie (as Jim Richardson)
Make Bray	...	Junkie
Al Kiggins	...	Police
Bob Bonds	...	Police
Fred Rolaf	...	Police

Also Known As:

Superfly (USA) (alternative spelling)

Runtime:

93 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:16 | Norway:16 | New Zealand:R18 | Canada:14A | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | UK:18 (video rating) (1988) | UK:X (original rating) | USA:R

Filming Locations:

East Village, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Sig Shore Productions

Trivia:

Financing for the film came from two dentists and Gordon Parks father of the film's director Gordon Parks Jr..

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: The man who takes a swing at Youngblood at the end of the movie is supposed to be the deputy commissioner, but it is clearly a double.

Quotes:

Cynthia: [after refusing a snort of coke because Priest is going to leave rather than stay for sex] Some things go better with coke.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "20 to 1: Crazy Customs (#6.5)" (2008)

Soundtrack:

Eddie You Should Know Better

Super Film

As far as i'm concerned the street drug cocaine, refined but corrosive WHITE powder, (It is the hydrochloric acid used to make this powder that destroys the nose) is a superb metaphor for the white oppression that the character's in Super Fly are caught up in. The real pusherman in the film is white, and far more dangerous than any drug. Witness the scene when Scatter is killed with an overdose. A powerful message that seems to have been lost on most of the folks reviewing this film. The black characters in Super Fly are all victims, trying to make the best of what they have, and there is another, just as powerful message, about the emptiness of the white American dream. Priest may want out of the drugs business, not because he hates drugs, but because of the endless hassle that comes with selling anything illegal. When pressed by his lover as to what he intends to do once out of the life, he has no real answer to give. There is no answer. What is there to the modern world other than conformity and brain death. I suspect that a character as intelligent as Priest knows this all too well. Yet such is the addiction of The American Dream, Priest even utters the words "FREE TO THINK", and the audience is left with a feeling of ambiguity. What really happens when you get what you want, it becomes worthless / meaningless more evidence of the humanity present in this film and the position the characters occupy.

The characters in this film are not one dimensional, they have great depth and like all real humans, are flawed, that is what gives the human race it's humanity and it is this humanity which is under threat. Witness the scene when Priest is approached by a group of activist's, who see him as a threat to themselves and their future, a future which is little more than the chance to get along with ones oppressors. Priest tells them that if they come back with an armed black America he will be only too happy to join them. Though they are misguided as a nation under oppression is the same no matter what colour skin your oppressor has. Priest knows this and so do the activist's. Another masterstroke of this film is to cast an actor who is neither black or white, but of mixed race, thus allowing any reasonable audience, to identify with the character. Which also makes him something of an outsider, straddling the world of blacks and whites a world we all know to be made of grey. Just as the ending is grey, Priest may have escaped his immediate oppressor, but his future is unclear. The final image of the film is one of the greatest of any film ever. The camera rests on the peek of a skyscraper, which looks all to like a junkie's needle topped syringe, a symbol of the addiction that is capitalism and the threat that capitalism holds over the entire planet.

This film has so much to say about modern life, our struggle for personal identity, the pursuit of happiness and the endlessly shrinking line between freedom and enslavement that i could easily fill a book on it.

At a time when on-screen human beings are being reduced to the level of silicone. Super fly is a breath of sanity in a world rapidly loosing it's mind, to the evil of control. The 1970's seem to me to be the most honest period of film making the screen has ever seen. It would be impossible to make such a film today.

My score 10 / 10