Long-time residents of NYC please help me out on this one. Were all coffee bar waitresses that vacuum-headed, or did Shaft just hit the bottom of the barrel when he went to Cafe Regio? I half expected him to knock on her head and ask if anyone was home.
"I'm not reckless . . . I'm skillful!"
Lol! I remember seeing this with my mother in the Seventies and my mother saying "I wonder what she's on."
Yippee: "For king!"
Yappee: "For country!"
Yahooie: "And, most of all, for 10ยข an hour!"
As an afterthought I went and checked on the actress who played the waitress. She didn't exactly enjoy the most stellar acting career in the world.
"I'm not reckless . . . I'm skillful!"
It wouldn't have mattered if Judith Anderson had played the waitress; if the actress was directed to play the scene a certain way, then that's the way it turned out.
"May I bone your kipper, Mademoiselle?"
Interesting point. Now I want to see the original shooting script to find out how she was depicted.
"I'm not reckless . . . I'm skillful!"
Most of the young white characters seem like stoners. One is a "step and fetch it" type - the hippie who Shaft asks to go up to his apartment and "turn on" the lights so the mafia cats watching think he's home. Awkward.
shareI always thought it was because she was being racist towards serving Shaft. She was deliberately avoiding eve contact and going out her way to be rude. Acting like 'I have to serve you but I don't want to'. She even makes a cheap racist remark about forgetting the lemon peel for his coffee. To which Shaft replies, "just drop it lady"
He said "let it go," not "drop it." She wasn't being rude. She was stoned out of her mind on LSD and/or weed probably. She wasn't trying to avoid eye contact or serving him. She asked him if he wanted some food and she brought his espresso quickly. She could have just ignored him or not brought it if she was racist. And when he told her to keep the change she said "thanks, baby." She might have slept with him if he gave her a little more attention and encouragement.
shareMa, I saw a whole bunch of these movies back in the day.
and just about everyone had at least one "uptight honky"
trying to give the lead charactor somekindofa dis.
I certainly don't think she dissed Shaft at all. Like others were saying above, the waitress just seemed ditzy.
Annoying the world since 1960!