Cotton Comes to Harlem
Cotton Comes to Harlem is a 1970 American neo-noir[2] action comedy film[3] co-written and directed by Ossie Davis and starring Godfrey Cambridge, Raymond St. Jacques, and Redd Foxx.Deke "Reverend" O'Malley, a con man, is selling shares at a Harlem rally, for the purchase of a Back-to-Africa movement ship to be called The Black Beauty.Though the authorities approve of O'Malley, regarding his "Back-to-Africa" movement as a way to solve American racial problems, both Jones and even more so Johnson are hostile towards him, viewing him as a charlatan who is exploiting the impoverished black community of Harlem.Jones and Johnson expose the Reverend O’Malley to the audience of the theater as the fraud that he is, remarking that he could have been another Marcus Garvey or Malcolm X, but instead he chose to be just a petty conman who exploited ordinary people.Detectives Jones and Johnson then blackmail Tom, a white mob leader, to give them $87,000 — to be restored to the original donors — after discovering that Uncle Budd has run off with the stolen money and emigrated to Ghana, to live in retirement with his ill-gotten gains and a harem.[11] Melba Moore, who sang the film's theme song, “Ain’t Now But It’s Gonna Be” (written by Ossie Davis) was contemporaneously starring in the hit Broadway musical, Purlie![...] However, like the dancer's balloons, fans and feathers, the movie's stick-ups, shootouts, chases, murders and wisecracks say little about the Black Experience except that Ossie Davis, when given the opportunity, can turn out a ghetto comedy-melodrama that is almost as cold and witless as Gordon Douglas' Gold Coast fables, Tony Rome and Lady in Cement.The eventual sequel, Come Back, Charleston Blue, loosely based on Himes' The Heat's On, with much original material injected, ended up being directed by Mark Warren and was released in 1972 by Warner Bros..
Cotton Comes to Harlem (novel)Robert McGinnisOssie DavisArnold PerlCotton Comes to HarlemChester HimesSamuel Goldwyn Jr.Godfrey CambridgeRaymond St. JacquesCalvin LockhartRobert Q. LovettGalt MacDermotFormosa ProductionsUnited Artistsneo-noiraction comedyRedd Foxxblaxploitationnovel of the same nameMelba MooreCome Back, Charleston Bluecon manHarlemBack-to-Africa movementHarlem detectivesbale of cottonMarcus GarveyMalcolm XWoods Theatre"Gravedigger" JonesEd "Coffin Ed" JohnsonJudy PaceEmily YancyJohn AndersonLou JacobiEugene RocheJ.D. CannonHelen MartinCleavon LittleTheodore WilsonLeonardo CiminoFrederick O'NealDon BexleySanford and SonWatermelon ManBroadwayPurliePurlie VictoriousTony AwardBlack Powerself-determinationFilm criticVincent CanbyThe New York TimesApollo TheaterGordon DouglasTony RomeLady in CementMountain XpressPalms Theatretheatrical rentals25th highest-grossing film of 1970cult classicSuper Fly20th Century Fox Home EntertainmentMGM Home EntertainmentBlu-rayKino LorbersequelMark WarrenWarner Bros.List of American films of 1970VarietyTurner Classic MoviesAtlantaTurner Broadcasting SystemTime WarnerHimes, ChesterNew York CityDell PublishingDaily PressCanby, VincentInternet ArchiveCentury City, Los Angeles21st Century FoxKino InternationalMcFarland & CompanyRotten TomatoesKongi's HarvestBlack GirlGordon's WarCountdown at KusiniCrown Dick