The ‘Pressure to Make Good for Your Whole People’ and the Story Behind SuperFly

The movie SuperFly that comes out this week shares a name with the 1972 film Super Fly, though "they serve different audiences, they serve different worlds," as TIME's film critic Stephanie Zacharek puts it in her review. But, even with all those differences, both movies also share a link to an important part of American history — and the history of LIFE Magazine.

The original Super Fly was directed by Gordon Parks Jr.