Harlem Nights.

Review #1639: Harlem Nights.

Cast: 

Eddie Murphy (Vernest "Quick" Brown), Richard Pryor (Sugar Ray), Redd Foxx (Bennie Wilson), Danny Aiello (Phil Cantone), Michael Lerner (Bugsy Calhoune), Della Reese (Madame Vera Walker), Berlinda Tolbert (Annie), Stan Shaw (Jack Jenkins), Jasmine Guy (Dominique La Rue), Vic Polizos (Richie Vento), Lela Rochon (Sunshine), David Marciano (Tony), Arsenio Hall (Reggie), and Thomas Mikal Ford (Tommy Smalls) Written and Directed by Eddie Murphy.

Review: 

It goes without saying that Eddie Murphy was a prime comedic star for the 1980s. It sure is something that one can be the headline presence in nine feature films in that era and have only one of them be an outright stinker (Best Defense, although the jury will be out on The Golden Child, another one that Murphy detested, until I actually get around to it...). He had various influences growing up that ranged from Richard Pryor to Bruce Lee, but it is the former that he most aspired to be most like. After all, Murphy thought he was going to be famous from a young age, but it was listening to one of Pryor's albums that made him think about doing comedy. And...you know the rest, but there is one thing to state about this film: it is the only time he has directed his own film, for which he also served as executive producer. The film ultimately turned out to be a mixed result. On the one hand, Murphy and the others did enjoy themselves quite a bit, to which Murphy described it as a blur that was amazing for coming together - at least in recent times, since he also called it part of his bizarre periods that catered to what he thought would please everybody while plagued with adulation, where the funny stuff seemed to be more offstage than in the film. One apparent inspiration was the real life conflict between gangsters involving Harlem, as Dutch Schultz and Bumpy Johnson had a conflict in the mid 1930s. Strangely enough, Johnson had been used as the inspiration for a variety of films with gangster characters, such as Shaft (1971) and The Cotton Club (1984). 

It can certainly be said that this is a weird vanity project, one that has a labor of love for wanting to work with inspirations that result in a wild up-and-down film. It was a mild success with its $30 million budget, but it also received mostly derisive attention for its time that has only slightly molded down into the box of "cult classic" from others. In other words: a mixed bag, one that can either be the equivalent of a good time spent for amusement, or one that can be thought of as too familiar or vulgar to work in either action or comedy. For me, I thought it was just fine - cliché period piece or not, there was still something for me to enjoy, even though it obviously isn't the best way to make one's own vanity piece (believe me, The Postman (1997), vanity piece or not, was far more embarrassing to go through). If a regular film student had done this basic premise, we would probably think of it as average fluff, but Murphy being the driving force basically magnifies everything to 10. Of course, the obscenities don't help, but am I really going to be the one to cry about swear words in a film? Class and bawdiness are the yin-and-yang of any time period, really (at least the ones that people want to live in instead of their own). Truthfully, the film works best when trying to not strain for a joke, where it allows itself to enjoy the crisp look that one will either tolerate as something they've seen before or wish they were watching another film about switcheroos (once one does The Sting (1973), can one really ever go back?). In that sense, while Murphy likely should have had someone else direct or had a script polishing, he does a fair job in balancing himself out, being semi-funny with a few quips in a generally warm-headed performance that anyone would be fine with in having mentors around while blowing folks away. On the other side of lead actors, this one was near the close of Pryor's career. He had suffered a variety of health problems (having been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1986, for which he said got worse in 1990) alongside doing a selection of wide-ranging comedy work (which ranged from Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling to Superman III), and this was his third-to-last starring role. He had his own reservations about his performance, one that he toned down from script-to-screen that seemed (to him) to be bothered by his MS diagnosis, and he felt that he never connected with Murphy and his "mean" comedy. Honestly, it is a fine performance, one that obviously is trying to play that line of weariness in being a mentor and also an adept player to what is needed - it results in a few amusing moments.  This was the last film role for Foxx, who incidentally would star alongside Reese in a Murphy-produced television show with The Royal Family (1991), which ended up being Foxx's last project prior to his death at the age of 68. He still seems to have the spark needed in wiry background amusement, and one can see a useful duo between him and Reese. Not to be forgotten for their own contributions in being a name for themselves before filming is Reese, who was known for her jazz and gospel singing for three decades alongside vast work in television. The film suits her well for a variety of amusing moments of bombast, with the sequences between her and Murphy (one of which involving a fight in an alley) proving a worthy highlight. Aiello and Lerner each make useful adversaries (cliché, but still), riding the line of imposing threat in each line of focus (whether as a beleaguered boss or a jealous cop in a hovel) that fits the standard needed. Others make appearances here and there that in theory could lead somewhere (such as a subdued Guy), but it ends up with Hall being the most interesting one to see in a short role, playing the crying game of mayhem pretty well. As a whole, 116 minutes of run-time is either too long for a film of this caliber or curious enough to want to see it all the way through. It is nobody's idea of a great crime comedy, but Harlem Nights could be worth your while if you find the sum of its parts enough to satisfy your curiosity. 

Next Time: The first film on my mind for this project - Boyz n the Hood.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Cotton Comes to Harlem.

Review #1635: Cotton Comes to Harlem.

Cast: 

Godfrey Cambridge (Gravedigger Jones), Raymond St. Jacques (Coffin Ed Johnson), Calvin Lockhart (Deke O'Malley), Judy Pace (Iris Brown), Redd Foxx (Uncle Budd / Booker Washington Sims), Emily Yancy (Mabel), John Anderson (Bryce), Lou Jacobi (Goodman), Eugene Roche (Anderson), J.D. Cannon (Calhoun), Mabel Robinson (Billie), Dick Sabol (Jarema), and Cleavon Little (Lo Boy) Directed by Ossie Davis.

Review: 

“...Harlem was home; was where we belonged; where we knew and were known in return; where we felt most alive; where, if need be, somebody had to take us in. Harlem defined us, claiming our consciousness and, I suspect, our unconsciousness.”

Actors becoming directors is not a surprising thing to see, because it has occurred for several decades, so one shouldn't be surprised to find that this was the directorial debut for Ossie Davis. The Georgia native initially studied at Howard University (after receiving a scholarship from the National Youth Administration) in philosophy. However, when asked by Dr. Alain LeRoy Locke (the head of the department) what his ambitions were, Davis had stated he wanted to be a playwright. Spurred by suggestions to check in with the Rose McClendon Players in Harlem to check what it means to be a writer, Davis left the university to go to Harlem, for which he joined the company in 1939 (seven years later, he would debut on Broadway). Aside from his acting interests, he also served in the United States Army for the Medical Corps and afterwards attended Columbia University School of General Studies from 1947 to 1948. Davis would start appearing in film in 1950 and television in 1955, eventually getting a few prominent roles (such as his first starring role with The Emperor Jones (1955, TV), Gone Are the Days! (1963, film), which also featured Cambridge, or The Hill (1965)) while being well known for his participation in civil rights activism (alongside his wife and actress Ruby Dee). This was the first of five theatrical films that Davis would direct in his life, and he was brought in by Samuel Goldwyn, Jr initially to star before being impressed by Davis' work in rewriting the script to have him direct instead. When it comes to the 1970s, blaxploitation was one of the dominant genres to come forward in making movies. It might be hard to describe what is the first one of its genre, but there were certainly example-setters in films that raised attention and eyebrows that came around at the start of the decade, whether involving Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971), or Shaft (1971). Of course one that shouldn't be forgotten is a film released a year before either film, one that is adapted from the 1965 novel of the same name that had been written by Chester Himes. The novel was part of Himes' series of mystery novels known as the Harlem Detective series, which had nine published works from A Rage in Harlem (1957) up to the last one in Blind Man With a Pistol (1969), with one unpublished work eventually being released after Himes' death. Eight of the nine works involved the characters of Gravedigger and Coffin Ed, obviously inspired by the exploits of pulp writers like Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. There have been two subsequent films since this one that were based on the two characters with Come Back, Charleston Blue (1971, starring Cambridge and St. Jacques but with no Davis) and A Rage in Harlem (1991).

What's not to like about a movie that wants to balance high action with cheeky humor? The film was written by Davis and Arnold Perl, who incidentally wrote for a variety of cop dramas (alongside directing the documentary Malcolm X (1972) before his death). They may be rough-and-tumble cops, but they sure don't break their promises to make sure to serve the community, especially when they are being swindled. I sure enjoyed what I saw, and it sure is easy to see why it proved to be on the earliest examples of raucous action entertainment, nothing that ends up great or even really good, but average is pretty good. This might be represented by a brief fight in the opening eight minutes, in which Cambridge and St. Jaques briefly deal in a scuffle with five folks that leads to one of the group getting tossed in the air to the stares of the others as he falls right back down. Not to be let down in further play in action is a roaring heist/duel between cops and thieves for money. Somehow, in the midst of the chase, the money was put into a bale of cotton and fell out of the truck, which naturally means the film is a pursuit of the cotton and the cons played to deal with said money. A variety of things occur through the film, such as a defrocked conman, blackmail, and plenty of gunfire and smart remarks to go around in a film shot in the summer of 1969 right in the heart of Harlem (with community support from The Black Citizens Patrol). Truly, one could see plenty of self-determination when it comes to slam-bang fun for a mostly interesting 97 minute tale. It might not rank up as a great action film or even as iconic as Shaft proved to be a year later, but it sure is a useful film that remains a curiosity after five decades, one that gets by with pride for its setting without too many details to bog things down. We have quite a duo here in Cambridge (who initially wanted to study medicine at Hofstra College before turning to acting) and St. Jaques (a Yale graduate in drama), each of whom did a variety of odd jobs alongside making it in acting through Off-Broadway roles; incidentally, Cambridge would also star in Watermelon Man (1970), which was also one of the first studio films directed by an African American (in this case Melvin Van Pebbles). At any rate, they make for a fine duo together, trading a few snappy lines that make for some chuckles while keeping the peace of mind with a casual cop plot. Lockhart makes for a quality adversary in terms of flim-flam confidence man, which goes over quite well in balancing humor with tension. Others follow along just fine in delivering a few plot details or curious stares, most notably with Foxx (known for his raunchy nightclub acts before sitcom stardom came in 1972), who proves for a few chummy laughs (particularly with a fitting close scene. Others play amusing fiddles such as Sabol or authority like Roche alright. As a whole, the film works best in its first and last acts, mostly because its process of investigation takes its toll in the editing department - the closing may not involve a big gunfight (that was earlier), but having a showdown in the theater is good enough. Is it a great film? No, and there would be plenty of blaxploitation films to come around, but it certainly has a place worth talking about when it comes to actor-director ventures with a bit of action and humor to go around.

Next Time: Now this one is different for Black History Month from the new voices seen so far, but it fits because of its angle within horror at the height of blaxploitation. That, and the fact it has an interesting history to it - Abby (1974).

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.