Melinda (1972)

          Something of a blaxploitation sampler platter, the overlong, over-plotted, and overwrought Melinda combines conspiracies, crime, martial arts, romance, revenge, and a whole lot of jive-talkin’, the latter element mostly issuing from the mouth of protagonist Frankie J. Parker, an arrogant Los Angeles DJ. The picture is fairly entertaining on a scene-to-scene basis, and it contains some respectable acting by costars Rosalind Cash and Paul Stevens, among others. Moreover, the sheer excess of the movie is beguiling, simply because Melinda wends through so many different genres during its 109 eventful (and frequently violent) minutes. The film doesn’t hang together, of course, and very little of what happens feels credible from either an emotional or a logical perspective. Nonetheless, copping the right attitude often helps put even the slightest blaxploitation flick over, and every so often Melinda hits a pleasing stance. Even when it doesn’t, the disconnect between leading man Calvin Lockhart’s uptight screen person and the movie’s down-and-dirty milieu is weirdly fascinating.

          When the story begins, Frankie (Lockhart) seems like a man in full. In addition to his successful career as a DJ, he struts around town wooding ladies and spends his free time perfecting his martial-arts skills under the tutelage of an instructor named Charles (played by future chop-socky-cinema star Jim Kelly in his big-screen debut). Frankie meets his match in Melinda (Vonetta McGee), a beautiful woman who’s just as self-assured as Frankie. They become lovers, much to the consternation of Frankie’s ex, the mob-connected Terry (Cash). Then things get complicated (to say nothing of contrived and convoluted). It seems Melinda knows the whereabouts of an audio recording that incriminates big-time gangster Mitch (Stevens), so she and Frankie become embroiled in a bloody adventure.

          Melinda hits some strange notes along the way. During the lengthy scene of Frankie and Melinda having sex for the first time, director Hugh A. Robertson repeatedly cuts to a thug standing in the hall outside Frankie’s apartment, masturbating while he listens to the couple’s carnal bliss. In a nasty flashback scene, Mitch sits and laughs while his underlings gang-bang his girlfriend. And in the very first scene, Frankie lays down goofy trash talk while coaxing Charles into a sparring session: “I’m ever-ready for some lightweight shit, but you better come with somethin’ heavy—I’m packed with dynamite!” Whatever you say, man.

Melinda: FUNKY

Honeybaby, Honeybaby (1974)

A mess of a story combining blaxploitation attitude, glamorous travelogues, I-am-woman defiance, international intrigue, and weird comic relief stemming from the presence of a ne’er-do-well stoner, Honeybaby, Honeybaby makes for a bewildering viewing experience. Although glimmers of professionalism occasionally peek through the amateurish sludge of disjointed scenes and nonsensical plot elements, the passable aspects aren’t reason enough to trudge through all 89 slow-moving minutes. The only consistent bright spot is the presence of leading lady Diana Sands, who died after this film was shot but before it was released, and seemed on the verge of becoming a star; despite the poor quality of Honeybaby, Honeybaby, Sands conveys intelligence, strength, and warmth. Anyway, here’s the loopy plot. Laura (Sands) is a UN interpreter living in Harlem. She wins a newspaper contest, and the prize is a trip for two to Beirut. Laura selects her idiot cousin, Skiggy (J. Eric Bell), as her traveling companion. Upon Laura’s arrival in the Middle East, a mystery woman secretly plants on Laura’s person a microdot containing the formula for preserving the body of a recently deceased African leader. Yes, you read that right. Various people stalk Laura, including the suave Liv (Calvin Lockhart), who seems to be a hybrid of a mercenary, a secret agent, and a smuggler. The narrative approaches incoherence at regular intervals, and it’s tiresome to watch insipid scenes like the one in which Lockhart and Sands feed marshmallows to guard dogs while invading a private estate. Viewed only for passages of the appealing Lockhart and Sands exchanging flirtatious dialogue, this picture is borderline acceptable. Beyond that, the movie is aimless, choppy, and dull.

Honeybaby, Honeybaby: LAME

Uptown Saturday Night (1974) & Let’s Do It Again (1975) & A Piece of the Action (1977)

          Though he’s best known for his ultra-serious onscreen persona, Sidney Poitier not only starred in but also directed the hit comedy Uptown Saturday Night, the first of three Poitier-helmed ’70s pictures in which the actor shares the screen with funnyman Bill Cosby. The movies are not a series, since neither characters nor storylines recur from film to film. However, the movies all boast impressive casts, slick production values, and a certain kind of moral integrity, since they emulate the blaxpoitation aesthetic without perpetuating blaxploitation stereotypes. They’re celebratory movies designed to entertain and inspire African-American audiences.

          Uptown Saturday Night is the weakest of the trio, partially because of an episodic story structure and partially because Poitier and his collaborators let scenes drag on to excessive lengths. Another issue, which troubles the entire series, is that Cosby rarely gets to embark on comedic flights of fancy. Whenever he does, the movies receive a huge uplift, which means that any time he’s stuck delivering exposition or playing bland dramatic scene, the series’ best resource is untapped. Uptown Saturday Night stars Poitier as Steve, a steelworker, and Cosby as Wardell, a cab driver. One evening, Wardell persuades Steve to visit an expensive brothel/gambling joint/nightclub called Madam Zenobia’s. The blue-collar guys pay dearly for visiting the high-roller establishment, because robbers invade the club and steal personal items from everyone in attendance. The next day, Wendell realizes that his wallet, which was taken by the crooks, contains a winning lottery ticket worth $50,000.

          In order to find the stolen goods, the friends infiltrate the local underworld, which puts them in the middle of a war between gangsters Geechie Dan (Harry Belafonte) and Silky Slim (Calvin Lockhart). Culture-clash gags ensue, climaxing in a goofy finale that involves a car chase, cross-dressing, and a funkadelic picnic. While Poitier displays almost zero control over pacing and tone, the movie features excellent supporting turns by Roscoe Lee Browne and Rosalind Cash. (The less said about Belafonte’s embarrassing Marlon Brando imitation, complete with cotton-stuffed cheeks, the better.) By far, the best scene in Uptown Saturday Night is Richard Pryor’s extended cameo as a nervous con man, because he explodes with the edge and energy the rest of the film sorely needs.

          Poitier and his collaborators righted the ship for Let’s Do It Again, the best of the trio. A straight-up caper comedy filled with colorful characters and crazy schemes, the movie works fairly well almost from start to finish, though it should’ve been 15 minutes shorter. This time, Billy (Cosby) and Clyde (Poitier) are blue-collar types who run a con in order to raise money for their fraternal lodge, a vital community hub. Traveling to New Orleans with their wives—and $18,000 in purloined lodge money—the boys secretly hypnotize prizefighter Bootney Farnsworth (Jimmie Walker), then place huge bets on Bootney before a title match. Scenes of Billy and Clyde dressing like pimps while they pretend to be players are cheerfully outlandish. Predictably, fixing fights gets our heroes into hot water with two New Orleans gangsters, Biggie Smalls (Lockhart) and Kansas City Mack (John Amos). Once again, high jinks ensue.

          Some of the material is wheezy, like the bit of escaping a hotel room with tied-up bedsheets, but most of the scenes are inventive and lively. Cosby also gets to do more pure shtick this time around, and the tunes on the soundtrack are fantastic—soul-music legend Curtis Mayfield composed the score as well as several original songs, recruiting the Staple Singers to perform the songs. Let’s Do It Again has many famous admirers, including the late rapper Notorious B.I.G., who borrowed his nickname “Biggie Smalls” from the movie.

          The quasi-series took a strange turn with the final entry, A Piece of the Action, which is a social-issue drama disguised as a comedy. Running an exhausting 135 minutes, the movie opens with three vibrant heist sequences. The robbers are Dave (Cosby) and Manny (Poitier), who neither know each other nor work together. Enter Detective Joshua Burke (James Earl Jones), a recently retired cop who summons the crooks to a hotel room and blackmails them. In exchange for sitting on evidence that could put them in jail for years, Joshua forces the thieves to volunteer at a community center for at-risk youth. Once this plot twist kicks in, the movie becomes a riff on Poitier’s hit To Sir, With Love (1967). While Dave tries to find jobs for the youths at the community center, Manny becomes the kids’ teacher, giving tough-love lessons about dignity and responsibility.

          Many scenes in A Piece of the Action are downright heavy, such as a fierce showdown during which brash student Barbara (Sheryl Lee Ralph) drives idealistic teacher Sarah (Hope Clarke) to tears by characterizing her as a dilettante exploiting poor African-Americans. Later still, the movie becomes a sort of thriller, because thugs from the heroes’ pasts show up for revenge. Despite featuring strong performances and sincere rhetoric, A Piece of the Action is awkward and unwieldy. Therefore, while it’s easily the most edifying of the three pictures, it might also be the least entertaining. Worse, the movie features Cosby delivering a crass rape joke that now has unwanted associations.

          Rumors have swirled for years that one or all of the Cosby/Poitier pictures would be remade, with Will Smith’s name perpetually floated as a likely participant.

Uptown Saturday Night: FUNKY

Let’s Do It Again: GROOVY

A Piece of the Action: FUNKY

The Baron (1977)

          Nominally a blaxploitation flick—albeit one that was released well after the blaxploitation craze had peaked—The Baron is really more of a character study about a movie-industry hustler. It’s not the most sophisticated picture, and the story lags during the middle, but there’s just enough credibility, novelty, and seediness to make The Baron somewhat interesting. Calvin Lockhart, a Bahamaian actor whose crisp speaking style and rigid bearing create an aristocratic comportment, stars as Jason, a headstrong actor/director/producer trying to assemble financing for his latest project. (We’re shown a snippet of the in-progress movie, which stars Jason as the swaggering multimillionaire adventurer “Baron Wolfgang von Trips.”) When Jason’s primary financier announces that a studio wants to buy the underlying literary property—but also wants to replace Jason as actor, producer, and director—Jason is crushed. Later, when the backer dies in an accident, Jason realizes that he’s responsible for money the backer borrowed from a gangster named Joey (Richard Lynch).

          Desperate for cash, Jason initially reaches out to a drug dealer nicknamed “The Cokeman” (Charles McGregor), and then he consents to becoming a live-in gigolo for an aging society dame played by old-Hollywood star Joan Blondell. Suffice to say, Jason’s moves don’t sit well with his girlfriend, Caroline (Marlene Clark), who struggles to understand why he can’t let go of his cinematic dreams and simply live a normal life.

          The Baron suffers from logy pacing, a problem exacerbated by sleepy music (jazz great Gil Scott-Heron contributed to the score). Additionally, Lockhart is so straight-laced that he’s not the right guy to play a fast-talking schemer descending into an abyss of humiliation and lies. That said, Lynch makes a terrific bad guy, oozing oily charm as he insinuates himself into Jason’s life, and Blondell hints at the pathos of a lonely woman who must purchase companionship. Yet the most interesting aspect of the story is actually the one that gets the least attention. As in the earlier B-movie Hollywood Man (1976), the notion of a filmmaker getting bankrolled by the Mob creates all sorts of interesting possibilities. Yet The Baron’s cowriter and director, Philip Fenty, explores virtually none of them. Nonetheless, The Baron pulls things together for its final act, thanks to a memorable last confrontation between Jason and Joey and an offbeat chase scene.

The Baron: FUNKY

Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970) & Come Back, Charleston Blue (1972)

          Most reputable sources peg 1971, the year of Shaft and Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, as the beginning of blaxploitation—yet two 1970 releases, Cotton Comes to Harlem and They Call Me MISTER Tibbs!, contain many signifiers closely associated with the genre. For instance, both movies include funky soundtracks, primarily black casts, and urban milieus. Tibbs!, of cousrse, is a sequel In the Heat of the Night (1967), whereas Cotton Comes to Harlem, cowritten and directed by African-American actor/playwright/activist Ossie Davis, is a whimsical celebration of modern black life, depicting a wide range of characters occupying a spectrum of social stations. Exploitation? Far from it. That’s why Cotton Comes to Harlem is interesting as a cultural milestone. As entertainment, however, Cotton Comes to Harlem isn’t quite as noteworthy.

          Based on a novel by Chester Himes, the movie is absurdly over-plotted and overpopulated, with a story that’s alternately difficult to believe and difficult to follow. The shortest possible summary is this: After a robbery/shootout disturbs a public rally, black NYPD detectives Coffin Ed Johnson (Raymond St. Jacques) and Gravedigger Jones (Godfrey Cambridge) investigate a criminal conspiracy related to flamboyant preacher Duke O’Malley (Calvin Lockhart). A wild chase/investigation involving angry citizens, drugs, drunks, revolutionaries, riots, stolen money, wronged women, and a giant bale of cotton unfolds, with scenes taking place throughout Harlem—culminating in a hellzapoppin finale on the stage of the Apollo Theater.

          Cotton Comes to Harlem is filled with provocative ideas and vivid performances, so it’s never boring. In fact, some parts might be too vivacious, with actors including Lockhart going way over the top at regular intervals. Conversely, Cambridge and St. Jacques are likeably cool and cynical throughout the piece, while iconic comedian Red Foxx—in one of his few movie roles—is surprisingly restrained. So, even though Cotton Comes to Harlem is bit of a mess, there’s something edifying about seeing what conscientious artists did with the same narrative DNA that, just a short while later, produced the dubious universe of blaxploitation.

          Cambridge and St. Jacques reprised their detective roles two years later in Come Back, Charleston Blue, which was adapted from another of Hines’ novels. This time around, the director was Mark Warren. The sequel is more disciplined than its predecssor, in both good and bad ways. While the stoyline of Come Back, Charleston Blue is a bit easier to track than that of Cotton Comes to Harlem, the second movie doesn’t have quite as much exuberance. That said, Come Back, Charleston Blue offers a faint echo of the charms that made Cotton Come to Harlem interesting, namely the offbeat fusion of comedy and drama and the loving depictions of black culture. Coffin Ed and Gravedigger, as well as other principal characters, are introduced during a charity ball that climaxes with a nasty murder. Eventually, the detectives learn that someone is playing vigilante by killing local mobsters, using straight razors to slit the throats of criminals plaguing Harlem neighborhoods. Clues suggest the culprit might by a fellow nicknamed Charleston Blue, who waged a similar war on crime years earlier but has long been thought dead.

          As Coffin Ed and Gravedigger search for the real identity of the avenger, they get into hassles with their superiror officer, Captain Bryce (Percey Rodrigues), and they dig around the activities of a photographer/activist named Joe (Peter De Anda). Along the way, the detectives get demoted to beat cops, employ various silly disguises, and survive lots of slapstick antics. Like the previous movie, Come Back, Charleston Blue is unweildly in terms of tone, bouncing between cartoonish comedy and extreme violence, but some of the elements work well, such as a running joke about a precocious street kid. Oddly, the leading actors are underused, since the filmmakers get disracted by nonsense. (What’s with the homage to The Public Enemy, the 1931 gangster classic with James Cagney?) This results in episodic pacing that makes Come Back, Charleston Blue feel overlong and sluggish.

          Perhaps that’s why Coffin Ed and Gravedigger didn’t appear onscreen again until A Rage in Harlem (1991), featuring Sam Pierce and George Wallace in the roles.

Cotton Comes to Harlem: FUNKY

Come Back, Charleston Blue: FUNKY

Halls of Anger (1970)

          Years after Sidney Poitier blazed a path by playing righteously indignant African-American characters whose noble behavior shatters prejudice, the far less impressive actor Calvin Lockhart followed in Poitier’s footsteps by starring in this clunky but entertaining social drama about the forced integration of a primarily black school in Los Angeles. Lockhart, who cuts a handsome figure but twists dialogue in such a peculiar and stilted fashion that he’s unintentionally comical, plays Quincy Davis, a black teacher who escaped the ghetto for a job at a suburban school with white students. When redistricting integrates a tough school, officials recruit Quincy to become the school’s new vice principal—and to be the de facto ambassador between racial factions. Everything springing from this contrived scenario is as predictable as you might expect. Quincy clashes with the white principal, who feels black students should be herded like animals instead of treated like people. The angriest black student, J.T. (James A. Watson Jr.), decides to make an example of a white student, Doug (Jeff Bridges), by dragging Doug into fistfights. Meanwhile, Quincy heroically inspires black and white students alike to take their education seriously, employing such unconventional practices as getting male students excited about reading by introducing them to the sexy passages in D.H. Lawrence’s books.

          Halls of Anger also features such tired tropes as a basketball-game showdown between J.T. and Quincy—because, in the limited imaginations of the filmmakers behind Halls of Anger, all black men settle arguments with games of hoops—and a race riot that Quincy quells with his MLK-style homilies of nonviolence and understanding. Chances are that Halls of Anger already felt behind the times during its original release, and the movie seems positively primitive today. Nonetheless, it’s hard to actively dislike the picture, because it means well in a clumsy sort of way. Plus, for every weak element—including a cornball music score that makes onscreen events feel as frivolous as comic-book panels—there’s a redeeming quality. Chief among those redeeming qualities, of course, is the presence of Bridges, appearing in one of his very first features; although he doesn’t get an enormous amount of screen time, Bridges elevates his scenes with intensity and naturalism. Future TV stars Ed Asner and Rob Reiner appear in small roles, and DeWayne Jessie—best known for fronting the fictional R&B band Otis Day & the Knights in Animal House (1979)—contributes an enjoyable turn as a student whose education Quincy turns around.

Halls of Anger: FUNKY

The Beast Must Die (1974)

          Made by the UK production company Amicus, a second-rate competitor/imitator of Hammer Films, The Beast Must Die is a truly strange amalgam of pulpy story elements—it’s a monster movie presented in the narrative mode of an Agatha Christie tale, and it features both blaxploitation flourishes and a ridiculous gimmick straight out of the William Castle playbook. Plus, the whole thing’s slathered with that noxious brand of pseudo-funk music that appeared in the worst UK horror pictures of the period, representing a failed attempt to make decidedly un-hip movies sound hip. To say that The Beast Must Die tries to be everything to everyone is an understatement.

          Bahamanian actor Calvin Lockhart stars as Tom, the owner of a gigantic country estate in the UK, which he’s rigged with an elaborate network of hidden cameras and microphones. Turns out Tom is a big-game hunter preparing for his most dangerous prey yet—a werewolf. Toward that end, he recruits six acquaintances for a weekend visit, knowing that one of them is the lycanthrope. (Never mind the unanswerable logic questions raised by his convenient possession of this knowledge.) Upon their arrival, Tom tells his guests that over the next three nights, when the moon is full, he will identify and kill the werewolf. During hunting scenes, Tom, who is black, gets duded up like he’s auditioning for a sequel to Shaft (1971), wearing a tight leather jumpsuit and a gun belt while he races through the woods aided, via radio, by his security technician, Pavel (Anton Diffing). During non-hunting scenes, Tom struts around dinner tables and smoking rooms repeatedly announcing, with absurd theatricality, “One of you—is a werewolf!”

          The actors playing Tom’s guests, including respectable UK performers Peter Cushing, Michael Gambon, and Charles Gray, try not to embarrass themselves when delivering the movie’s goofy dialogue. Alas, any hope of retaining dignity disappears when the picture reaches the “Werewolf Break,” a 30-second onscreen countdown giving viewers one last chance to ID the monster’s human guise. The Beast Must Die is outrageously stupid, but it boasts solid production values and a quick pace, while lovely costars Marlene Clark and Ciaran Madden provide eye candy by wearing low-cut dinner gowns in most of their scenes. And, to be fair, a couple of the werewolf attacks generate half-decent jolts, so it would be ungallant to deny that The Beast Must Die generates at least a few moments of cartoonish entertainment. Overall, though, what holds the attention here is the (morbid) curiosity factor of watching a laughably misguided film self-immolate.

The Beast Must Die: FUNKY