SUPER FLY EFFECT

Don't hate the dealer. Hate the game.

Did you know the main character in Super Fly is named Priest? Over time he’s become known as Superfly, but in the film the term comes up only once—when someone says to Priest, “You always got some super fly shit!” He’s referring to cocaine. Priest is a drug dealer, but he wants out and will do whatever it takes to make that happen. This is one of the better blaxploitation flicks. Ron O’Neal’s Priest is tough but three-dimensional, showing vulnerability, confusion, even desperation. Dynamic if uneven direction from Gordon Parks, Jr. and a propulsive soundtrack by Curtis Mayfield help put the whole concept over. In fact, after you watch the movie, you should listen to the album, particularly the sparkling, “Give Me Your Love,” which we think is one of the most immaculately constructed soul tunes ever written. Super Fly premiered in the U.S. in the summer of 1972 and opened in Japan today in 1973.

Japan, Super Fly, Ron O'Neal, Curtis Mayfield, Gordon Parks Jr., Sheila Frazier, Tom Jung, blaxploitation, poster art, cinema, movie review

ABOUT

EMAIL

LEGAL

SEARCH PULP INTERNATIONAL

PULP INTL.
HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

November 13

1940—Fantasia Premieres

Walt Disney’s animated film Fantasia, which features eight animated segments set to classical music, is first seen by the public in New York City at the Broadway Theatre. Though appreciated by critics, the movie fails to make a profit due to World War II cutting off European revenues. However it remains popular and is re-released several times, including in 1963 when, with the approval of Walt Disney himself, certain racially insulting scenes were removed. Today Fantasia is considered one of Disney’s greatest achievements and an essential experience for movie lovers.

November 12

1912—Missing Explorer Robert Scott Found

British explorer Robert Falcon Scott and his men are found frozen to death on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica, where they had been pinned down and immobilized by bad weather, hunger and fatigue. Scott’s expedition, known as the Terra Nova expedition, had attempted to be the first to reach the South Pole only to be devastated upon finding that Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen had beaten them there by five weeks. Scott wrote in his diary: “The worst has happened. All the day dreams must go. Great God! This is an awful place.”

November 12

1933—Nessie Spotted for First Time

Hugh Gray takes the first known photos of the Loch Ness Monster while walking back from church along the shore of the Loch near the town of Foyers. Only one photo came out, but of all the images of the monster, this one is considered by believers to be the most authentic.

November 12

1969—My Lai Massacre Revealed

Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh breaks the story of the My Lai massacre, which had occurred in Vietnam more than a year-and-a-half earlier but been covered up by military officials. That day, U.S. soldiers killed between 350 and 500 unarmed civilians, including women, the elderly, and infants. The event devastated America’s image internationally and galvanized the U.S. anti-war movement. For Hersh’s efforts he received a Pulitzer Prize.

November 11

1918—The Great War Ends

Germany signs an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car outside of Compiègne, France, ending The Great War, later to be called World War I. About ten million people died, and many millions more were wounded. The conflict officially stops at 11:00 a.m., and today the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month is annually honored in some European nations with two minutes of silence.