Friday Foster (1975)

While it has violence and nudity, there’s something lighter and frothier about the blaxploitation film, Friday Foster (1975); it’s almost ready to be a crowd-pleasing TV movie pilot, maybe because the film is being based on a comic strip (comparable to Modesty Blaise in terms of syndicated newspaper comics). A vehicle for the great Pam Grier who proves her star power here as the title character, a photo journalist for Glance magazine who has ties to the fashion industry, and is assigned to cover the airport arrival of Blake Tarr (Thalmus Rasulala), a black billionaire Howard Hughes type. When there’s an assassination attempt (one of the shooters is a young Carl Weathers) and Friday gets the scoop, the stage is set for her to be an amateur sleuth that continually gets into The Perils Of Pauline type sticky situations; this gives Grier the chance to alternate between earnest sincerity and charming goofiness. There’s a murder mystery and a political conspiracy, and multiple location shots of Washington DC, and a whispered figure at the centre of it all, the “Black Widow”. It’s also refreshing to see Yaphet Kotto in a wise-cracking hero role, playing Colt Hawkins, a private detective on the case and a foil to Friday; their partnership feels like a nice spin on The Thin Man or Bogey-and-Bacall Hollywood detective dynamic. There’s a great cast including Godfrey Cambridge, Julius Harris, Scatman Crothers, and Eartha Kitt as fashion designer Madame Rena, delightfully tearing through their scenes without even a glance in the rear-view mirror. There’s a sunny neo-noir vibe and screwball comedy throwback gags and patter, just with more casual sex. Music by Luchi De Jesus who also contributes the very catchy title track. As with most 1970s blaxploitation, this was directed by a white guy, Arthur Marks, who also made other classics of the genre that I haven’t seen like Detroit 9000, Bucktown and JD’s Revenge. Streamed on Criterion Channel but also available to rent on iTunes. Recommended.

Report To The Commissioner (1975)

There’s so much location footage of old Times Square New York in Report To The Commissioner (1975), that it IS its own character, a document of a New York from long ago, crowded streets witnessing a spectacular filmed foot chase or extras interacting with method actors playing cops. This movie is like a lost Sidney Lumet film but not actually directed by Sidney Lumet. Based on a novel by James Mills, the opening scenes lay it out for us: a female undercover cop has been killed, Patty (Susan Blakely), shot by another cop nick-named “Chicklet” (Michael Moriarty) at the home of the pusher/gunrunner, Stick (Tony King), that she was seeing/collecting evidence from. The report is headed up by Capt Stitcher (Ed Grover) whose interviews, recordings and research frame the narrated flashbacks. We get different perspectives such as the hard-working undercover cop and the superiors who green-light her latest case. Yet the movie is mostly about Moriarty the young hippie cop being assigned the jaded, street-wise partner, Crunch (Yaphet Kotto), and his journey into being swallowed up by the system. Filled with New York character actors (and former cops – including Sonny Grosso from The French Connection), this is the type of movie with lots of conspiratorial scenes of men in suits smoking cigarettes and having tense conversations in backrooms or side streets. There’s also a young Bob Babalan as a legless homeless person, a young Richard Gere as a pimp, and a young Hector Elizondo as a careerist cop. Moriarty’s method acting might be over the top depending on your mileage, but I’m all for it and he gives a full blown performance, that goes from mumbling naivety to a twitching, sweaty mess. Kotto provides the ballast as his partner and is the cynical symbol of assimilating into the system. Directed by Milton Katselas with a funky score by Elmer Bernstein, there’s a looseness for the most part that sharpens by the second half and leaves behind quite a punch by its last image. Available to rent on iTunes, which I did on the day that Yaphet Kotto passed away. Recommended.

Across 110th Street (1972)

Jackie Brown is one of my all time favourite soundtracks and I always wanted to watch the movie where it took its opening/closing theme, ‘Across 110th Street’ by Bobby Womack. I was a little surprised to find that the melancholic, orchestral sweep of the song I know was not used in the title credit sequence of Across 110th Street (1972), rather a faster, funkier, percussive version is featured. Produced by star Anthony Quinn, based on the novel by Wally Ferris, and directed by Barry Shear, the film works in the Blaxploitation genre, and is principally made by white men about the racial divide in New York between Central Park and Harlem. Yet faster, more mobile cameras were used in the filming and it was shot in location, allowing for a greater sense of authenticity, which is carried over in the wider focus of a large cast of characters. Even though our protagonists are Quinn as the older, jaded Italian cop who has worked Harlem for decades and the younger, college educated black cop played by Yaphet Kotto, the film casts a wider net in the fall-out of a stick-up job in Harlem where money was ripped off from the Italian mob. We spend time with the police investigation, and with the mobster (Tony Franciosa) out to reclaim the money and punish the robbers, but also the black gangsters helping the pursuit led by Doc Johnson (Richard Ward), and the three neighbourhood stick-up men (Paul Benjamin, Antonio Fargas, Ed Bernard), all across a couple of hot, muggy nights. While no doubt influenced by In The Heat Of The Night, the film portrays a city and an overall system, as well as leaving no easy answers or moves for solidarity in its resolution. There’s ugly, brutal violence and cynical turns in its narrative. Quinn and Kotto are good, but it’s the desperation of the thieves and their associates that provide the most affecting, memorable moments (especially Paul Benjamin’s performance who would later work with Spike Lee in films like Do The Right Thing). Score by Bobby Womack and JJ Johnson. Available to stream on Stan; can also rent/buy on iTunes. Recommended.