Cotton Comes To Harlem
by Ossie Davis
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Calvin Lockhart, Godfrey Cambridge, Judy Pace, Raymond St. Jacques, Redd FoxxDirector: Ossie Davis
Brand: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0; Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: Pan & Scan, 1.33:1
Running Time: 96 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-01-09
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Movie Reviews of Cotton Comes To Harlem
Movie Review: A ripoff, a high speed chase and Harlem scenery
Summary: 5 Stars
I have been seeing this film since I was a kid and to be honest, with each film, I learn a little bit more about the film that I did before. Anyway, you see this fancy car followed by a gold armored truck going throughout Harlem; To me, that is suspect from the get go, but alright. Let's see how this go; The movie starts with this man coming out of this fancy car in a cape(Calvin Lockhart) with followers, and folks are on the car trying to see the Reverend O'Malley. He gets on a platform and puts on this big speech about being tired of whitey and going back to Africa and asking folk to sign up for the ship($100 minimum) and you should see the folks running up to the table to buy shares on this ship. Redd Foxx come up and has $20 tops and after some consideration from the Reverend, he is given a certificate. Then soon after, whitey comes up and asks that the Reverend go downtown(I'm smelling a rat, but ok) then as soon as he get the people to calm down, a group of folks jump out a car and starts shooting up the place and surprise, take the money these people put down for this ship. And from then, it's a high speed chase for two cops(Godrey Cambridge and Raymond St Jacques) to get to the heart of the matter.
Summary of Cotton Comes To Harlem
One of the most influential Soul Cinema pix ever to shoot onto the screen, Cotton Comes To Harlem spawned the blaxploitation boom by delivering a "refreshingly different detective action yarn with soul and humor" (Cue) and an unbeatable mix of "fast-paced adventure [and] comic lunacy" (Pacific Film Archive). Detectives "Gravedigger" Jones (Godfrey Cambridge) and "Coffin Ed" Johnson(Raymond St. Jacques) are on the case and in everyone's face when they investigate Rev. Deke O'Malley (Calvin Lockhart)a brother whose "Back To Africa" campaign is nothing more than a big scam forbigga' bucks. But when $87,000 of O'Malley's laundered cash gets stashed in a bail of cotton, Gravedigger and Coffin find they're not the only dudes suddenly interested in soaring cotton prices! Trailing the bale all over Harlem, the detectives come up against the mafia, the police, black militantsand more in an all-out dash to nab the $87,000 cashand to 86 anyone who stands in the way!Based on Chester Himes's novel, this film marked actor-writer Ossie Davis's directing debut. Godfrey Cambridge and Raymond St. Jacques play Himes's volatile police detectives, Gravedigger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson, who are on the trail of white men who pulled an armed stickup at a Back to Africa rally in Harlem. The money belongs to the poor people who paid for a chance to return to the motherland--but was it really a stickup? Or is the flashy preacher at the center of the Back to Africa movement (Calvin Lockhart) involved in a scam to rip off his own people? The plot drags; the best part of the film are the performances (as well as spotting cameos by such actors as the then-unknown Cleavon Little) and the on-location shooting in parts of New York where a camera had rarely ventured previously. Redd Foxx shows up in a small part as a ragpicker that led to his role in TV's Sanford and Son. --Marshall Fine
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