CREDITS SHAFT, 1971 dir: Gordon Parks Richard Roundtree Moses Gunn Antonio Fargas Charles Cioffi Lawrence Pressman Ed Bernard

“Don't let your mouth get your ass in trouble. ”

Who’s the black private dick that’s a sex machine to all the chicks? Damn right!

In 1971 I went to see the Supremes, well past their sell-by date and lacking not only Diana Ross but just about anyone recognisable. Best part of the evening was the backup band pounding out the theme from a new movie – Theme from Shaft, which sent me straight out to the cinema.

The 70s blaxploitation genre started here and, though much of the action centres on 125th Street in Harlem, the office of John Shaft (Richard Roundtree) was on Times Square, and his apartment in west Greenwich Village, at 55 Jane Street.

Just across Hudson Street stood the ‘No Name Bar’, where Shaft turns the tables on a stakeout with a stint behind the bar. It’s now an excellent Italian restaurant, Piccolo Angelo, 621 Hudson Street.

Shaft: John Shaft meets a mafia contact: Caffe Reggio, 119 MacDougal Street, Greenwich Village

Remaining unchanged is venerable Village hangout Caffe Reggio, 119 MacDougal Street at West Third Street. Shaft meets the mafia contact over an espresso here, before walking off down MacDougal Street, past another Village institution, the Minetta Tavern, seen in Barry Levinson's Sleepers).

Cafe Reggio is also seen in dull 1976 thriller The Next Man (with Sean Connery as an Arab diplomat!) and in Next Stop, Greenwich Village. The girlfriend of Frank Serpico (Al Pacino) works in the Reggio in Sidney Lumet's Serpico, though it's not seen in the film. It's supposedly a location for The Godfather Part II, but I can't see it anywhere.

Shaft (2000): Shaft's new hangout: The Lenox Lounge, Lenox Avenue, Harlem

For John Singleton's 2000 revamp, with Samuel L Jackson, Shaft's local becomes a real Harlem landmark, the Lenox Lounge, 288 Lenox Avenue. You can also see this recently restored deco classic in Spike Lee's epic Malcolm X.