A Singular Film by John Singleton: Boyz N the Hood

About a month ago, theairwaves were filled with tributes to Richard Roundtree, dead at 81.  Back in 1971, at age 29, Roundtree soared to internationalcelebrity in Shaft. The story of a tough, sexy Black detective combingthe mean streets of Manhattan helped launch the blaxploitation craze, in whichcrime dramas, martial arts dramas, and the occasional urban comedy featuredAfrican American casts, raw languages, and funky musical scores. As anunderling at Roger Corman’s down-and-dirty New World Pictures, I worked on myshare of blaxploitation flicks, but ours tended to emphasize femalenudity.  We were the first to corral thetalents of the bodacious Pam Grier, but my most vivid memory of that era isworking on 1975’s TNT Jackson, in which a Playboy centerfoldnamed Jeanne Bell played a kung fu expert fighting off bad guys in Hong Kong.

 The blaxploitation era as awhole had the virtue of helping talented Black performers become stars. But itdidn’t make for the world’s best movies. Cut to 1991, the year when a24-year-old writer-director set Hollywood a-buzzing with a coming-of-age dramaset in South Central L.A. Boyz n the Hood started out as part ofSingleton’s application for the famous USC Film School. Feeling deeplyconnected to the gang-ridden urban environment in which he himself had grownup, he knew from the start that this was material he had to direct himself.Which didn’t mean he made the film in a vacuum. Some of the early materialinvolving four young boys checking out a dead body was influenced by the 1986film, Stand by Me. And when he sold his script to Columbia Pictures in1990, the greenlight came quickly because of the box office success of SpikeLee’s 1989 streets-of-Brooklyn masterpiece, Do the Right Thing.

 Singleton’s story, whichleaps seven years at mid-point, explores what it’s like to grow up in an areadominated by gang violence. At ten, the little boys of the Crenshawneighborhood of South Central, are already aware that they can easily becometargets. There are roughnecks around to taunt them, and the local police(including an arrogant Black cop) are less than helpful in keeping trouble atbay. Young Trey has the advantage of a tough-love dad determined to keep him onthe straight and narrow; young Ricky is a budding football talent. But as thissection ends, Ricky’s half-brother, the chubby Doughboy, is already being arrestedfor shoplifting. The stage is set for the drama that is to follow.

 As a very young filmmaker,Singleton was helped by a cast that contained old pros as well as some brightnew talents. The script’s essential father figure, “Furious” Styles, was portrayed by the gifted Laurence Fishburne, who’dplayed major stage roles and been featured in films like Apocalypse Now andThe Color Purple. Fortunately, Singleton had met him on the set of Pee-Wee’sPlayhouse¸ where he was working as a production assistant and securityguard. Day jobs have their uses: Singleton met Ice Cube while serving as anintern on the Arsenio Hall Show, then gave him a central role (as theteen-aged Doughboy) that has propelled the rapper into a major acting career.The elegant Angela Bassett played her first significant film character as Trey’supwardly mobile mother Reva in Singleton’s film; both Cuba Gooding Jr. andMorris Chestnut—as 17-year-old Trey and Ricky—essentially began their careerswith Singleton. (Bassett has since become a two-time Oscar nominee, and Goodingwon the supporting actor statuette in 1996 for Jerry Maguire.) Nia Longand Regina King can be spotted too.