What it is...What it Was!: The Black Film Explosion of the '70s in Words and Pictures Paperback – Import, 18 October 1998

This hefty 208 page and about 11" x 8.5", book is loaded with fantastic Blaxploitation movie poster artwork. Most of the pictures range from a quarter of a page to full page (and there are lots of full page posters which are just super cool) and this is what drew me to this book. I've bought probably six or eight books on the subject and this one is the one to get if you're looking for great images.After the introduction, the book proceeds to tell us more about what we're looking at with a section called THE ART OF THE POSTER with lots of great info provided by Ron Finley, John Solie and Walt Reed (about a dozen or so pages). Then it's the really fun part with THE FILM EXPLOSION where we get a few pages each from various folks from in front of and behind the camera, some who made them and others who were inspired by them. The complete list of contributors in this section are (in order) Melvin Van Peebles, William Marshall, Pam Grier, David Walker, Roscoe Orman, Roger Corman, John Singleton, Keenen Ivory Wayans, Fred Williamson, Arthur Marks, Kevin Hooks, Gloria Hendry, Reginald Hudlin, Robert Townsend, Rudy Ray Moore, Jack Hill, Cheryl Dunye, Isaac Hayes, Robert Louis Stevenson, Carol Speed, Ice-T, Samuel L. Jackson, Glynn Turman and Quentin Tarantino. Their stories are fun and informative. What follows is a brief filmography. Scattered throughout all of this are beautiful color images (there's barely a B&W pic in the book) of vintage movie posters.Content-wise this is a great book for movie posters and hearing from the cats who made the pictures. It's a trip down memory lane for fans who grew up with these films. I really dug it. I would also recommend a nice companion piece to this one called Blaxploitation Cinema: The Essential Reference Guide by Josiah Howard. That one gives you a rundown on an amazing amount of films in the genre. If it's not complete it's pretty darn close. Howard provides lots of info on each movie and, like the What It Is book, it's loaded with great movie poster art of all sizes. I listed a detailed review for that one on the product page for it. These two books combined give you just about everything you'd want and together they make up the best books on the genre. I'm a lifelong fan of these films and it's just a total gas flipping through these, reading about the movies I dig and those that I need to seek out.

"WHAT IT IS..WHAT IT WAS! IS THE ULTIMATE MOVIE GUIDE FOR MOVIE LOVER OF BLACK 70'S ACTION FILM,IT GIVES MOVIE PERSPECTIVE FROM BOTH CURRENT AND PAST FILM MAKERS.THERE'S OPINIONS GIVEN BY ACTORS,DIRECTORS, AND MUSICIAN SWHO LIVE THE TIME WHERE BLACK HEROES WERE BOUGHT TO THE SCENE.ON THE BACK, THIS MOVIE GUIDE HAS AN ALPHABETICAL LISTING OF BLACK 70'S FILMS FROM A TO Z.AN PERFECT EXAMPLE, "ACROSS 110TH STREET" TO "ZEBRE KILLER",TWO MOVIE MADE IN THE 1970'S.

Cool Book !