Max Julien plays the hero, John "Goldie" Mickens. In prison for a five-year bid for charges that are never fully explained (an associate says it was a set-up), Goldie returns to the streets of Oakland determined to make his mark again. You see, Goldie was a pimp, and he has full intention of going back to the trade that made him a living legend. Of course, in the years since his incarceration, the streets of Oakland have pretty much stayed the same. Crime and poverty still hold the ghetto in a tight grip. In particular, the drug scourge of heroin is at an epidemic level. Goldie's estranged brother Olinga (Roger Mosley) has joined a militant activist sect who want to rid the ghetto of all forms of negative influences, including pimps. In Goldie's rationale however, the sex trade is an acceptable vice, but drugs have to go. So he recruits a former working girl of his, Lulu (Carol Speed) to be his 'number one': Goldie then begins building up his harem of hookers, while Lulu coaches them in the fine art of boosting (aka shoplifting). Richard Pryor is Slim, Goldie's loyal friend and confidant. Before long, Goldie is back to being a prominent purveyor of pandering. He gives out money to neighborhood kids for staying in school, to the delight of the children and the consternation of their parents. His rise has attracted the wrong attention, however. A pair of corrupt police detectives starts harassing Goldie as soon as he is released from prison. They threaten to send him back to jail if he doesn't cut them in on the action. Added to the danger are rival pimps, who may view Goldie's success as a threat to their own. Pryor likely ad-libbed much of his dialogue here, and in a tense scene with the cops, he portrays some poignant vulnerability.
The film is rightfully influential, and serves ironically enough as a career highlight for Max Julien, a former theater actor who had substantive involvement with the development of this film, as well as on "Cleopatra Jones" and "Thomasina & Bushrod" but his own career as an actor and producer seemed to fade sharply right along with the Blaxploitation trend itself.
The film is rightfully influential, and serves ironically enough as a career highlight for Max Julien, a former theater actor who had substantive involvement with the development of this film, as well as on "Cleopatra Jones" and "Thomasina & Bushrod" but his own career as an actor and producer seemed to fade sharply right along with the Blaxploitation trend itself.