Our Staff Picks column is a new addition that takes you back to a time when video stores reigned supreme and the "Staff Picks" section was the place to find out what films were worthy of one's time. Of course, our version has a decidedly nude angle, as we suss out which films from a certain genre with great nudity. This week: blaxploitation.
The blaxploitation genre is a subgenre of 70s exploitation flicks, but it may be the most successful. These low-budget films were made by Black people and starred Black people as action heroes who fought back and looked hot doing it. A lot of them have hot men taking off their clothes and showing off their action-hero bodies! Let's take a look.
Black Shampoo
This 1978 flick is awash with nudity! We get deep in star John Daniels' hairy bits when he owns a hair salon on the Sunset Strip. He tends to the hair of the rich and the famous...which also means he meets gorgeous women that he can take to bed. That's exactly what he does! He has a good time undressing and getting busy with the best of them.
All is well until a mob attacks his salon and kidnaps his secretary. Uh oh! John then has to put on his pants and get revenge - which he does by arming himself with a CHAINSAW and going ballistic on the mob. It gets surprisingly violent! But don't worry - he takes breaks to continue baring his booty.
Shaft in Africa
Shaft is one of the most famous films of all time. It was the movie that brought black action heroes to the mainstream. This 1973 film stars Richard Roundtree who shows off his round rump. Finally! We've been waiting to see those beautiful buns. We never get to see his shaft, but we enjoy seeing that rear end.
Mandingo
This film is a true exploitation movie in that it makes folks pretty uncomfortable. The sexy melodrama was based on a novel by the same name and focuses on a plantation in the antebellum era in which a plantation owner's son trains an enslaved man named Ganymede (played by the hunky Ken Norton) to fight. When Ken Norton isn't training his beautiful body to be in top form, he is banging the white guy's wife.
A lot of drama ensues, as you can expect. The film isn't great, but the nude scenes really are. The white son is played by Perry King who goes full frontal when he undresses in front of a woman he is about to bang.
Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song
Melvin Van Peebles changed the game and is often heralded as really defining the blaxploitation genre. He plays a hustler who makes his money entertaining women - and he does a fantastic job at that! He makes a lot of women happy with his huge cock which we get to see a couple of times during the film. At one point, he even unveils his huge penis but letting a strap loose and showing his hog.
The hustler becomes a hero when he saves a prominent Black Panther from the cops, thus cementing what would later become the formula of this genre. This film is also important in terms of independent filmmaking. Melvin Van Peebles was a real maverick who learned how to make films by doing it - and he did all of it. He wrote, he directed, he acted, and he did everything in between. The best part is that he went nude.
