Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970) in the PNW

Details: Written by: Mortado; Category: The 1970s in Northwest Cinemas

This is a collection of media from the initial runs of "Cotton Comes to Harlem" (1969) in the Pacific Northwest.

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Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970)
Ossie Davis tries to steer a noisy, street-level caper and mostly keeps it from sinking. "Cotton Comes to Harlem" takes Chester Himes energy and slaps it into a movie that wants to be a crime comedy, a social critique, and a populist thriller all at once. The leads are loud and unapologetic. Godfrey Cambridge and Raymond St Jacques play the two Harlem detectives at the center of the mess, and Calvin Lockhart is the slick con man who sets everything in motion. The film is rough around the edges by design, which is both its charm and its flaw.

If you want polish, you will be irritated. The camera work and editing do the job without showing off, and the funky score keeps things moving when the plotting gets sloppy. What saves the film from collapsing into caricature is a cast that can sell attitude and a few scenes that actually bite into the uglier realities the jokes try to paper over. It wants to mock hustlers while admiring their showmanship, and it wants to indict institutions while giving the audience the comfort of a caper where the good guys punch back. The result is entertaining and uneven in equal measure. If you like cinema with attitude and moral messiness, "Cotton Comes to Harlem" will feel like a guilty pleasure that knows it is guilty. If you want nuance and restraint, you will find it wanting.

Director: Ossie Davis
Writers: Chester Himes, Arnold Perl, Ossie Davis
Stars: Godfrey Cambridge, Raymond St. Jacques, Calvin Lockhart
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July 15, 1970 ad (Portland)