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
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