We all know the iconic film series Shaft starring Richard Roundtree as the legendary private detective John Shaft, originally created by Earnest Tidyman. But did you know that in October of 1973, two years after the original Gordon Parks-directed movie, MGM premiered a Shaft television series on CBS?

Richard Roundtree returned to the role he made famous for the TV series, which many have compared to the likes of Mike Hammer and Phillip Marlowe. Each week Shaft is drawn into a different case to solve, with different villains to smoke.

The October 9, 1973 premiere, titled “The Enforcers,” centers on a group of elite citizens lead by Marshall Cunningham (Robert Culp), that has created a sort of vigilante committee. Their activities include kidnapping, trying, and executing suspects who have been acquitted of crimes in the justice system. Shaft becomes involved after the group murders an attorney who helped get him started in his business. Eddie Barth – who appeared in the original film (as a different character) and had a recurring role in the series – played Lieutenant Al Rossi. Dean Jagger, famous for playing the lead villain in Bruce Lee’s Game of Death, plays a judge in the episode. Directed by John Llewellyn Moxey, “The Enforcers” also stars Richard Jaeckel, Kaz Garas, Rafael Campos, Noah Keen and Michael Gregory.

Other episodes of Shaft included guest appearances by such actors as Val Avery (Gloria, The Amityville Horror, Black Caesar), Ja’net DuBois (who played Willona Woods on Good Times), Albert Popwell (Sudden Impact, The Enforcer, Magnum Force, TV’s Ironside), Judy Pace (Cotton Comes to Harlem, TV’s Kung Fu, TV’s Beyond Westworld, Cool Breeze), Tony Curtis (Some Like it Hot, Sweet Smell of Success, Spartacus, TV’s The Persuaders), Frank Marth (TV’s The Six Million Dollar Man, TV’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E., TV’s Battlestar Galactica), Jayne Kennedy (Body and Soul, Fighting Mad, Ms. 45, TV’s The Love Boat), Darren McGavin (famous for playing Carl Kolchak in TV’s Kolchak: The Night Stalker), Kim Hamilton (TV’s The Mod Squad, TV’s Police Story, TV’s Kojak, TV’s Mannix, TV’s Sanford and Son), and Sid Haig (House of 1000 Corpses, The Devil’s Rejects, Diamonds Are Forever, Foxy Brown, Savage Sisters, TV’s The Rockford Files).

The Shaft TV series was part of the “The New CBS Tuesday Night Movie” and rotated every other week with James Stewart’s “Hawkins,” which was also about 90 minutes with commercials.

The final episode of the Shaft television series aired on February 19, 1974, wrapping up a set of 7 total episodes that all ran about an hour and 13 minutes. Because of the long run time on the episodes, when Warner Brothers released the entire series in 2011 as part of their Archive Collection, it was called “The TV Movie Collection.”

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