New York cocaine kingpin “Youngblood” Priest (Ron O’Neal) at the top of his game decides it’s time to get out of the business, but finds that it isn’t that easy.

Directed by Gordon Parks Jr., who died in a helicopter crash in 1979, Super Fly came on the heels of Shaft (directed by Parks’ father, Gordon Sr.) and kicked off the Blaxploitation genre, dominated by lurid underworld stories with largely Black casts and aimed at urban audiences. The debate still rages over which is better, Shaft or Super Fly.

Super Fly had a ninety-nine cent budget, but the script by Phillip Fenty captures the street scene in a way most movies to this day don’t bother to. Shot on location in a bleak and chilly New York, Super Fly feels like the crew followed a real dope pusher around, shooting in his pad, hangouts and car right after he left.

Ron O’Neal is super bad while seemingly not even attempting to be. He doesn’t break a smile. He’s serious. Priest has a lot on his mind and O’Neal plays him straight. At the same time, the script doesn’t call for an explosion of gratuitous sex or violence either. Priest actually has a reluctance to put his hands on anybody, but when the situation calls for it, doesn’t hesitate to get dirty.

Fenty’s script was never going to win an Oscar, but the dialogue is real and even features some occasional pathos, most of it courtesy Carl Lee as Priest’s partner Eddie. Shiela Frazier and Polly Niles are given absolutely nothing to do, playing Pries’s black and white women, but Julius Harris is a standout as Priest’s mentor “Scatter”, who has retired from the dope game but doesn’t hesitate to put a foot in someone’s ass if called for.

The real star of the film is the “music composed, arranged and orchestrated by Curtis Mayfield.” Appearing as himself singing “Pusher Man” at a nightclub, Mayfield created one of the greatest movie soundtracks recorded to this day. “Little Child Runnin Wild,” “Freddie’s Dead,” “No Thing On Me” and “Super Fly” are played in one form or another throughout, with lyrics that could cut glass commenting on what’s happening on screen.

That’s not to say the movie is great. The story is thin. Not a lot happens. Fortunately for Parks Jr., he had Mayfield’s music to use in extended shots of O’Neal driving or walking around. There’s a ridiculous sex scene between O’Neal and Frazier in the tub, but the big finale, where O’Neal puts his kung fu skills to use against four honky detectives, is shot in slo-mo and pretty bad ass. And instead of going out as a cop killer, the script has Priest actually use his head and resolve his problems with Whitey in a clever way.

The tricked out Cadillac El Dorado driven by O’Neal was owned by “K.C”, a pimp who makes a cameo appearance in the movie. The deal was that, in exchange for the use of his wheels, he’d be given a part in the film. But instead of trying to act pimp, K.C. like everyone else in the movie, just is, selling Super Fly as far more true to life than most of the Blaxploitation flicks that would follow.