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The Appropriate Tune: 'Black Enough' by Galt MacDermot
If one were to judge the most successful films to come out of the ‘blaxploitation’ era of film, it would have to be Shaft. There were certainly films that were successful, Blacula, Super Fly, Dolemite, enough for some of them to get sequels, but they didn’t really persist outside of their time beyond the occasional reference or parody. Shaft not only got several sequels, but also a revival film, another revival film, and a couple comic books on the side. It’s not exactly a Star Wars level franchise, sure, but for a movie with a Black lead that catered primarily to a Black audience it managed an impressive amount of acclaim.
However Shaft was not the only hardboiled crime story in the ‘blaxploitation’ genre, nor was it the only one based on a novel. So it was between this and Barry Shear’s classic crime film Across 110th Street, and this one was easier to find.
Released in 1970, Cotton Comes to Harlem was directed by Ossie Davis, written by Davis and Arnold Perl and produced by Samuel Goldwyn Jr. through Formosa Productions. Godfrey Cambridge and Raymond St. Jacques star as Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson respectively, two Black cops working the beat in Harlem. In the year 1970 the man of the hour isn’t Jones or Ed, it’s the Reverend Deke O’Malley, who amassed quite the following in Harlem for his ‘Back to Africa’ movement. 87,000 dollars worth in fact, which is promptly stolen by a gang of masked gunmen, who manage to escape despite their getaway car exploding at one point. The only evidence left at the scene of the crime is a wad of unprocessed cotton, the kind typically shipped in bales. Where exactly are you supposed to find cotton in Harlem? Is O’Malley’s heart really in the right place? That’s what Ed and Jones are going to find out.
In case you’re not from the U.S., the whole ‘Back to Africa’ thing was not an invention of this movie, but rather a persistent thread in Black communities going back to the early 20th century. The logic being that conditions were so bad in America for Black people that the only solution was to pack up and move back to ancestral Africa. America being a racist hellhole doesn’t matter if you don’t live in America anymore, and obviously the nations of Africa will be perfectly fine with thousands of people sailing in and deciding that they live there now. There’s a reason that the KKK listed Marcus Garvey as the ‘Black Moses’, and also why he eventually got caught scamming his followers, because the easiest grifts are the one pulled on the most vulnerable people. Yet in spite of my opinion it’s clear to see why such a movement had legs, and why the theft of that 87,000 hits so hard. It’s a paltry sum compared to the haul you usually see in movies, but to the people of Harlem that was their hopes and dreams up in smoke.
As I said this is a hardboiled detective story, and if Shaft brought to mind the morally ambiguous tales of Raymond Chandler, then Cotton Comes to Harlem is more in line with Mickey Spillane. There’s nothing ambiguous here, Ed and Jones are a freight train barreling through the story with nothing but some snarky quips and a loaded revolver. Beating up a drug addict? Well he had useful information. Misleading fellow officers and disobeying direct orders from a superior? Well they’re white, so they don't matter. Shooting a guy in the stomach with a flare gun and lighting him on fire? Well it’s quicker than pulling out a gun and showing restraint. Slapping around a woman? Well it’s frowned upon, but she was working with the bad guy so it’s fine. Ed and Jones believe themselves to be in the right and so everything they do in the pursuit of their goal is justified, that they decide what the law and justice is and how its carried out. Which in a dramatic bit of coincidence places Cotton Comes to Harlem far closer to Dirty Harry than it ever does to Shaft. Arguably a more damning statement than the praise this film has for Marcus Garvey, as it encourages Black people to believe in and trust the police if the officers are Black as well, which is something that been used against Black communities in the past.
This film also has a weird sense of humor, which has nothing to do with the kinds of jokes so much as it decided to add jokes in the first place. If it were limited strictly to those quips I mentioned you probably wouldn’t notice, but the amount of visual gags end up feeling incongruous. I mean this isn’t a pacifistic movie -- A lot of people die, quite violently, and there are enough explosions to make Chuck Norris nod his head in approval, but then you’ve got people getting a pie in the face and Redd Foxx as the lovable hobo. Again if the tone were satirical, even darkly satirical in the vein of Robocop it would’ve worked, but as it is the zig-zagging tone doesn’t feel quite right.
By the way, the music here is done by Galt MacDermot, a Canadian musician who had previously done work for the film Woman is Sweeter. It’s not bad, but considering other blaxploitation films at the time had folks like Isaac Hayes and Curtis Mayfield at the helm it does come off as a bit underwhelming. Director Ossie Davis contributed lyrics to several of these songs and yep, they read like lyrics from someone who isn’t a songwriter by trade.
Cotton Comes to Harlem doesn’t get the recommendation. While it’s perfectly fine on a technical level, enough so that crime movie fans will likely have a decent time, personally it never grabbed me. I think I’ll stick with Shaft for now.
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