The Poitier-Cosby Trilogy: A Piece of the Action

by Odienator
(for all Mumf pieces, go here)

During Black History Mumf 2012, I set out to write about the Poitier-Cosby trilogy of films from the 1970’s. I lived up to two-thirds of the bargain, writing about Uptown Saturday Night and Let’s Do It Again. Every time I set about writing a piece on the last film in the trilogy, 1977’s A Piece of the Action, I was reminded how much I disliked it. I was so happy to again spend time with Geechie Dan, Little Seymour and Biggie Smalls (not the rapper, folks) that writing those pieces felt effortless and fun. By comparison, writing this piece was going to be a chore. Watching the 2+ hours of Piece again, after having so much fun with its predecessors, would feel as if I’d traded a happy ending massage parlor for a dentist’s office. I dreaded doing a post on it, and I have half a dozen discarded drafts to prove it.

So I conveniently “forgot” to write about it last year. Nobody’s gonna notice, I told myself.

Somebody did: The compulsive in me kept looking at that Black History Mumf series list and calling bullshit on this author. “The Poitier-Cosby Trilogy” designation would never be completely true unless I wrote this piece. Since Netflix has yet to come through with the DVD of the film I had intended for today’s Mumf entry (shades of 2008’s Mumf issues with them), I am here to review Bill and Sid’s Not So Excellent Adventure. Consider this a bit of unfinished business, a punishment for something with which I thought I’d gotten away.

Despite a cast featuring James Earl Jones, Denise Nicholas and Sheryl Lee Ralph, A Piece of the Action is an overlong caper comedy with an identity crisis. It may have the stars of Uptown Saturday Night and a theme song sung by Let’s Do It Again’s Mavis Staples, but it sorely lacks the other ingredients that made those films the Black movie classics they are. It is the sole entry in the trilogy not written by Richard Wesley. Wesley’s successful duet featured Poitier and Cosby in a pair of comedies involving a stolen lottery ticket and the power of hypnosis respectively. Wesley populated the films with a delectable array of criminal types straight from the ‘hood. About Uptown Saturday Night, I wrote:

“Screenwriter Richard Wesley (who also wrote Let’s Do It Again) writes caper films for Black audiences, filled with little touches that ring true for ‘hood denizens. He also creates characters who are adults with adult problems. They may act ridiculous at times (Cosby sells some major woof tickets in this one), but unlike today’s movie adults, these guys are not written for 12 year old boys to relate to in any fashion. That alone is refreshing, but I dig jonesing on just how Black the plot details are in Wesley’s films.”

On Let’s Do It Again, I wrote:

“[Let’s Do It Again] didn’t follow the same characters from Uptown, but covered  similar territory. There was action, comedy, and the Cos doing what he does best: trying to improvise his way out of a jam. Poitier directed several of the same actors from the prior feature, and Wesley’s title summed up what went on in 1975 when the film was made. He called it Let’s Do It Again.

Like most sequels, Let’s Do It Again is bigger, louder, raunchier and sillier. The stakes are higher for our heroes, and the plot requires a leap of faith almost too large for something as comedic as this. But cast and crew pull it off, assisted by a Curtis Mayfield score filled with lead vocals from The Staple Singers’ fine as hell lead singer, Mavis Staples. For my money, Let’s Do It Again is the best of the Cosby-Poitier trilogy. The worst of the three, A Piece of the Action, will occupy this space next Saturday.”

It took me 52 Saturdays to make good on that promise. My bad.

Those quotes highlight what’s wrong with A Piece of the Action. The filmmakers—director Poitier and screenwriters Charles Blackwell and Timothy March—aim for a more dramatic feature with a message. They want to remind you of the other films while both changing the tone and adding a bunch of teenagers to undercut the adults. Instead of getting in over their heads with wannabe criminal shenanigans, Cosby and Poitier are now expertly skilled master thieves who have never been caught. Instead of a group of colorful, memorable criminal types played by big-name actors like Harry Belafonte, we get a bunch of one-note, cynical kids played by up-and-coming actors like Eric Laneuville and Ernest Thomas (Raj from What’s Happening). The kids are looking for jobs, and Cosby and Poitier are forced to help them or risk going to jail by a retired cop (James Earl Jones) blackmailing them with evidence of their crimes.

The “help the kids” plot does not play nicely with the “rob the mob” plot. This was clearly a one or the other proposition. A Piece of the Action never once attempts to stitch these mismatched elements together in a convincing fashion.  Had I a choice between the two conflicting halves, I would have chosen the heist movie. The first 30 minutes or so of the film presents a crime that’s very well directed by Poitier. Cosby and Poitier make convincing crooks. Can you think of another film circa 1977 that featured elegant Black safecrackers? Probably not, but I bet you can name a dozen preachy, generation-gap, smart-ass ghetto kids movies from the same period.

Once Jones sets the high school plot in motion, Cosby’s comedy is practically neutered and Poitier thinks he’s in "To Sir, With Bruv," the Black version of the film he made 10 years prior. (Aside: To Sir, With Love is a movie I admit to loving far more than I should—I adore it, and I don’t care if that’s unhealthy.) The Cos woos principal Denise Nicholas, and while that’s kind of sweet, it’s not given the attention nor the weight to make it effective. Meanwhile, the kids bicker and fight and are generally unpleasant. I don’t know if this was an attempt to reach out to a younger audience, but at best it’s a pander and at worst it’s rather intolerable. Sheryl Lee Ralph in particular got on my nerves (and you know I usually love me some SLR); her 3-minute “takedown” of her “bougie” teacher is an embarrassing hot mess. It sounds like that bullshit, clueless “anti-cracker” dialogue Joel Schumacher wrote for Dolores’ similar big scene in Sparkle.

A Piece of the Action must realize it’s been spending too much time with these broke-ass kids, because it introduces another blackmail plot into the mix. This one involves the old reliable “one last heist” cliché. This drags the film out well past the 2-hour mark and my willingness to keep watching.

I will give A Piece of the Action this. The last scene in it is great, and not just because it has closing credits going across it. Mavis Staples sings that titular tune while the kids dance with Poitier (in yet another ripoff of To Sir, With Love). Cosby manages to get his biggest laugh (and there are so few to be had from him here) by falling victim to the most dangerous ass in a Warner Brothers movie. See for yourself here.

Poitier retired from acting after this film, only to return 11 years later in Shoot to Kill (which I enjoyed). He continued to direct, and his next film was Stir Crazy. I’d like to say this is the lowest point in the Cosby-Poitier collaborations, but I’d be called out as a liar by a film called Ghost Dad. If you come back here to the Mumf to find a piece on that film, you will know I have gone batshit crazy and have been replaced by a replicant.

Well, you'll know it's me if I link to this scene:

The Poitier-Cosby Trilogy: Biggie Smalls Is Da illest

by Odienator
(for all Mumf pieces, go here)

After the success of Uptown Saturday Night, Sidney Poitier and Bill Cosby reteamed with writer Richard Wesley for a sequel of sorts. The new film didn’t follow the same characters from Uptown, but covered  similar territory. There was action, comedy, and the Cos doing what he does best: trying to improvise his way out of a jam. Poitier directed several of the same actors from the prior feature, and Wesley’s title summed up what went on in 1975 when the film was made. He called it Let’s Do It Again.

Like most sequels, Let’s Do It Again is bigger, louder, raunchier and sillier. The stakes are higher for our heroes, and the plot requires a leap of faith almost too large for something as comedic as this. But cast and crew pull it off, assisted by a Curtis Mayfield score filled with lead vocals from The Staple Singers’ fine as hell lead singer, Mavis Staples. For my money, Let’s Do It Again is the best of the Cosby-Poitier trilogy. The worst of the three, A Piece of the Action, will occupy this space next Saturday.

Director Poitier telegraphs his rowdier intentions during the opening credits. After following his milkman on his deliveries, we meet up with Bill Cosby on the job. The Cos is operating heavy machinery under the influence of booty. Specifically, the booty of the fly honey dip walking around outside.

Poitier’s camera ogles her, seeing her, um, assets through the horny eyes of Cosby’s Billy Foster.

Eventually, booty kills the beast: in an attempt to get attention, the married Foster crashes his forklift.

Back in the locker room, Foster’s co-workers tease him for his lack of self (and forklift) control. To save face, Foster challenges one of them to a fight. Unfortunately for Foster, his nemesis is played by former heavyweight champion and current grill pitchman, George Foreman. Foster sells some serious woof tickets to Foreman, telling him “don’t write a check your behind can’t cash!” Ready to endorse that check, Foreman agrees to battle Foster.

No, George's not looking at a hamburger.

Both men take off their shirts in preparation, and Cosby, with his scrawny chest covered in peasy hair, standing opposite Foreman’s Mack Truck sized body, is a sight gag too delicious to resist. 

 “Don’t throw a punch yet!” implores Foster. “I want to say something to you.”

 Foster does the only logical thing he can to keep from getting his jaw broken like Ken Norton did against Foreman. He surrenders by hugging Foreman.

Outside, Foster meets up with Poitier’s Clyde Williams. Seems Foster has been trying to convince Clyde to partner in a hare-brained scheme. Clyde says no repeatedly before the two visit a city office regarding an extension on their lodge’s relocation. While in the waiting room, Foster interacts with a little girl. With her mother’s blessing, Foster takes the child on his knee and tries to entertain her. We’ve seen this a million times before—the Cos talking to little kids and getting their reactions. Except this time, the little girl pees on Cosby’s leg. That never happened on Kids Say The Darndest Things.

At the lodge, Let’s Do It Again introduces Clyde and Foster’s significant others. It’s Foster’s anniversary, and his gift to Beth Foster (Denise Nicholas) is a trip to New Orleans. Clyde and his wife Dee Dee (Lee Chamberlain) are going to accompany them. “They’re up to something,” Beth tells Dee Dee. She agrees.

What the guys are up to is fixing a fight to generate money to save their lodge. Lodge elder Ossie Davis tells them they have two weeks to come up with the money to break ground for the new lodge. The collection plate has $18,000, but they need $50,000. Foster’s plan is for Clyde to use his Army-learned hypnosis skills to hypnotize the underdog in a prize fight, then bet on the underdog to win big. After hearing Davis’ impassioned pleas, Clyde decides to go along with Foster’s plan. Off to Chocolate City go our heroes and their better halves.

Boxing’s main event is between 40th Street Black and Bootney Farnsworth. Farnsworth is played by J.J. Evans himself, Jimmie Walker. You know how skinny J.J. is, and Let's Do It Again’s earlier juxtaposition of Cosby and Foreman was visual foreshadowing. One look at the size of Farnsworth’s competitor reveals that a punch from 40th Street Black will knock Farnsworth all the way down to 1st Street Black and Blue. Clyde sneaks into Farnsworth’s room and uses a triangle and a spiral on a chain to hypnotize him into thinking he’s incapable of losing a fight. “You are a tiger!” says Clyde. I admit this is a rather hokey plot development, but trust me, just go with it.

Before we can see if Clyde’s whammy is successful, our heroes must find a way to get out of Farnsworth’s hotel room without being seen by the cops or his management. In I’m Gonna Git You  Sucka, Willie and Leroy are constantly told “you can take the window or the stairs” as an exit. Clyde and Foster decide to take the window.

This decision leads to some harrowing fear-of-heights inducing footage, a half nekkid White woman, and proof that, if the sex is good enough, a woman will ignore what is obviously a bearded Black man behind her couch.

Savor it! This is as much skin as you'll get in this picture!

The back of this couch sure feels like Negro!

A man, on the other hand, will pay attention. This guy's oochie-coochie session is interrupted because Clyde and Foster have to climb into that half-nekkid woman’s window to keep from falling to their deaths. The guy puts his hand behind that couch and pulls Foster up by the face. Foster immediately starts trying to talk his way out of it. Cosby will have several more opportunities for this before the end credits, but this one has my favorite payoff. Foster tells the man that he’s the hotel house detective, and he is investigating some kind of room capacity violation. When he asks for the man’s name, the man tells him it’s Rufus. When Foster asks his occupation, Rufus informs him he is the hotel house detective. OOPS!!

I’ll not spoil how they get out of that one.

The next day, Bootney Farnsworth shows up at the scene of so many of his prior ass-whippings in the ring, his practice gym. But this time, Bootney has the Eye of the Tiger.

The sight gags are hilarious, with skinny ass Bootney sending the boxing equipment flying and airing out his sparring partner in less time than it took Tyson to do in Michael Spinks. Seeing that the whammy is working, both Clyde and Foster place bets on Farnsworth at 5-1 with bookies.

Foster goes to see Kansas City Mack, who’s played by J.J. Evans’ father on Good Times, John Amos. Amos appears to be having the time of his life, with his multiple gold teeth and gangster suits. But he’s no match for Cosby’s attire  as New York City gangster Mongo Slade. Foster enters Mack’s restaurant looking like a reject from George Clinton’s mothership. His suit has short pants!  As he places his bet on Farnsworth, Foster has some hilarious problems with a gun and his pants. Kansas City Mack takes his money with a warning: If the bet’s not on the level, Mongo Slade will bear witness to a big Mack attack.

 Julius Harris is Kansas City Mack's Right Hand Man, Bubbletop

Not to be upstaged, our director also shows up in unusual dress to make a bet. Clyde’s bet is with Uptown Saturday Night’s Calvin Lockhart. In Night, Lockhart’s character was named Silky Slim. In this picture, Lockhart’s moniker is well known to many rap fans. Calvin Lockhart is the original Biggie Smalls. Biggie is told he has a visitor who wishes to bet on the fight, and when Biggie lays eyes on his customer, Curtis  Mayfield issues a surprised chord on the soundtrack. Sidney Poitier is standing before us dressed like he’s en route to the Player’s Ball. America’s most distinguished Negro actor is dressed like a pimp!

 "Is Mr. Tibbs gonna hafta choke a bitch?"

"I'm the illest," says Biggie Smalls.

 
Biggle Smalls takes the same bet Kansas City Mack takes: $10,000 on 5-1 odds for Farnsworth.

Fight night comes and goes, and with it, so does 40th Street Black’s championship belt. Farnsworth KO’s him in the first round. Afterwards, Clyde deprograms him and Farnsworth has no idea what happened. Biggie and Kansas City Mack pay our heroes, they return to Atlanta and the lodge is saved! The End, right?

WRONG! Let’s Do It Again is about 45 minutes old by now. The fight fix catches up to its perpetrators. Based on Farnsworth’s blabbermouth coach, Kansas City Mack realizes he’s been played. “Bootney was in some kind of a trance,” the coach tells him, and though it takes Mack 6 months, he figures out not only what’s happened but where to find Clyde and Foster. Poitier and Cosby’s reaction to seeing Mack at their lodge is worth the price of admission. Under duress provided by a very angry and violent Julius Harris, the duo agree to fix the rematch between Farnsworth and 40th Street Black. Mack believes he can con Biggie Smalls into losing all his money, thereby putting him out of business and saving the New Orleans market from being taken over by Smalls.

Smalls takes the bait. He sees a repeat of Farnsworth’s past post-hypnosis Mike Tyson imitation and decides to not take Wesley Snipes’ Passenger 57 advice about always betting on Black (40th Street or otherwise). But Mack’s plans to have Farnsworth deprogrammed on fight day go spectacularly awry. Once again caught in Farnsworth’s hotel room, Clyde and Foster don’t have a half-nekkid White woman or a window to save them this time. They get cold busted mid-hypnosis. This leads to more Cosby improv, but Farnsworth’s handlers ain’t buying it. “We are from an orphanage,” says Foster. “It has REAL ORPHANS! They wanted us to sing a song to the champ!” As Clyde rings his hypnosis chime, Foster sings a hilariously off-key made up song.

 “Oh champ, we love thee through thick…and THINNNNNNN!”

Their asses get thrown in jail!

Since there’s no way Farnsworth can be deprogrammed (a second attempt fails after Farnsworth turns into the Bionic Man, leaping up into trees and outrunning Clyde), Clyde comes up with a different idea: Hypnotize 40th Street Black and let the chips fall where they may. This will require the wives’ help, so the men must come clean. Until this point, both Beth and Dee Dee assumed the lodge money came from investments, not bookies. The plan requires both women to dress up and place $50,000 bets with Mack and Biggie. The outcome of the fight, which we are never told, carries  20-1 odds. One can believe Beth will pull off the ruse—she’s the more bombastic and outgoing of the two. I’d be more worried about Dee Dee. Earlier, the film highlights their differences by having Dee Dee become visibly uncomfortable over Foster and Beth’s randy sex talk. Hearing Cosby talk about putting his hammer deep into his wife’s crevices just screams out FILTH-FLARN-FILTH!

Let’s Do It Again dresses both actresses outrageously before sending them to their bets, but allows Nicholas’ scenes to be more comic and inventive. Chamberlain’s Dee Dee looks characteristically nervous and says little in her scenes. Nicholas is all brass balls in hers, starting trouble with Biggie’s right hand woman (is her name Li’l Kim?!!) and being a general loudmouth. Giving the wives a piece of the action is a good choice by the script, and it pays off big time after the fight.

Speaking of the fight, it occurs, and this is the outcome both Beth and Dee Dee bet on:

This is worth $1 million!

Both Kansas City Mack and Biggie Smalls think they’ve been swindled by the other. Meanwhile, Beth and Dee Dee return to claim a million bucks each from their respective sources. Dee Dee’s goes off without a hitch, but Beth has serious problems getting her dough from Biggie Smalls. She has Smalls call her “boss in Chicago” to prove she’s not in cahoots with Kansas City Mack. Beth gets her money, but not before uttering my favorite line in Let’s Do It Again:

“Will you tell this CHILD to get that gun outta my face before I make her eat it?!!”

Eventually, Mack and Biggie realize they’ve been outsmarted by Clyde and Foster. I don’t have enough space to untangle how this plays out, except to say it involves yet another improv speech by Foster and a very long foot chase featuring Poitier and Cosby leaping rooftops like the athletic men they were in 1975. Again, credibility is stretched, but I am happy to live with Let’s Do It Again’s plot resolution. Cosby’s end credit speech about a fixed fight between Sammy Davis Jr. and Muhammed Ali more than makes up for any “oh come on!” moments that precede it.

Cosby and Poitier’s characters live another day, and make a third movie in this trilogy. Next Saturday, I suffer through that third movie, A Piece of the Action.

 God, I love the 70's!

The Poitier-Cosby Trilogy: Cuz I'm From Off The Corners

by Odienator
(for all Mumf pieces, go here)

Before 1973, Sidney Poitier was hardly known for comedy. In old Hollywood, when you said  “comedy” and “Negro,” you meant COON. Sidney was our distinguished Black actor, carrying the weight of the “Good Negro” on his capable shoulders. He was held to a higher ideal, noble beyond any reasonable request. Sidney could be charismatic, charming, and even easy-going. Outright funny he could not be, at least not before he took control of his own career by directing and producing his films in the early 70’s.

Sharing a production company with Paul Newman and Babs Streisand, Poitier started directing the kinds of movies he wanted to be in, changes of pace from his norm. He started with the wildly entertaining 1972 Western, Buck and the Preacher, then helmed the romantic drama A Warm December. The latter I affectionately refer to as the “Put Your Shirt Back On, Sidney!” movie. A shirtless, early 70’s era Poitier is definitely not objectionable, but you could make a drinking game out of how many times he loses his shirt. You’d die.

In 1973, writer Richard Wesley brought a screenplay to Poitier, who intended to direct but not star in it. Attached to the story of two men trying to retrieve a stolen wallet containing a $50,000 lottery ticket were Richard Pryor and Redd Foxx. Bill Cosby blew away the executives during his tryout for the small part of a shifty private eye. In fact, Cosby’s audition for this part is the stuff of legend. But Warner Bros., Poitier’s studio for this new film, didn’t believe Foxx or Pryor were appropriately sized box office draws. Foxx had just started on Sanford and Son, and Pryor had been in the moderately successful Wattstax and the wildly successful Lady Sings the Blues. By comparison, Poitier was an Oscar winning superstar and had been the number one box office draw in 1967, with his triumvirate of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, In the Heat of the Night, and To Sir, With Love. Bill Cosby was a famous stand-up comedian with three Emmys for his dramatic work with Robert Culp on the 60’s classic I Spy.

Out went Redd and Rich, in came Sidney and the Cos, and the rest is history. The resulting film spawned two pseudo-sequels and changed the way we looked at Sidney Poitier.

Let me briefly stop here for a moment of mourning. We should bow our heads in silent reverence for the movie that Uptown Saturday Night would have been had Warners not been so gaat-damn greedy. I’m not sure who would have played which part, but in either roles, both Richard Pryor and Redd Foxx would have been Black movie dynamite. I would have loved to see Pryor as the suave Sidney straight man and Foxx as the bullshitting Cos. Imagining scenes with them makes me giddy. Alas, like Diana Sands in Claudine, we must relegate these notions to our imaginations rather than reality.

Don’t get me wrong. Uptown Saturday Night is perfectly fine as cast. The movie we are left with for posterity benefits from the fine work by Sidney and Bill. Cosby picks Poitier’s pocket and walks off with the picture, but Sidney purposely telegraphs where his wallet is. Their offscreen friendship translates to their onscreen characters, which is why it works here and works even better in the first "sequel," Let’s Do It Again. I’ll be covering that next week, and the second "sequel," A Piece of the Action, in two weeks. Maybe I’ll miraculously like that latter picture by then.

Uptown Saturday Night tells the story of Steve Jackson (Poitier) and Wardell Franklin (Cosby), two blue collar guys who decide to live above their stations for one night. Cab driver Wardell and factory worker Steve are working multiple jobs and, as Uptown Saturday Night opens, Steve is on vacation from all his jobs for two weeks. Wardell convinces him to go to Madame Zenobia’s, a legal club with an illegal gambling ring behind a red door. This ritzy club is not for po’ folks like Steve and Wardell, so Wardell types a fake letter on some stationery he stole from his wife’s law office employer. The letter says he and Steve are important African diamond merchants and is “signed” by one of the “lawyers.” “Who is that guy?” asks Steve, referring to the fake name on the signature. “I don’t know,” says Wardell, “and I hope he doesn’t show up here tonight.”

He doesn’t. But a bunch of stocking mask-clad burglars do. Before the robbery, Wardell is making beacoup dollars at a craps table. With her hot dice, Leggy Peggy (Paula Kelly) is burning down the House. Both Wardell’s fists are full of money he’s made courtesy of a loan from Steve. When the robbers arrive, Wardell’s upraised hands are full of cash. (Watch how Cosby silently yet reluctantly hands over the money the gun-toting villains take from him.) The robbers make everyone strip to their underwear before they leave. “But I don’t wear underwear,” says one unlucky lady. Too bad for her (and for us—Poitier keeps the camera at a modest angle). Just before the robbers leave, the leader says “Never have so few owed so much to so many.” Yup, a misquoted Winston Churchill is robbing Madame Zenobia’s.

The next day at church, as Reverend Flip Wilson preaches a sermon about not bringing “joy juice” to the upcoming church picnic, Steve and Wardell try to stay awake and out of suspicion. The duo had been cleaned of their cash the night before, so when the collection plate comes around, Wardell puts a handful of air in it.  When Mrs. Wardell passes the collection plate back to him, Wardell puts a bigger handful of air into it. Steve gets into bigger trouble after church. Asleep In his chair and smiling, Mrs. Steve pulls a dirty trick on him. “Are you dreaming about me?” she asks. No response. “Are you dreaming about a woman?” she asks. Steve smiles. His wife hauls off and slaps the everlasting gobstopper shit out of him. Poitier’s reaction remains for me the film’s biggest laugh. Holding his face in shock after leaping 20 feet off the chair, he looks at his wife in shock. “Why you hit me?!!” he asks, his Bahamian accent creeping back into his astonished voice. “You must have been dreaming,” says Mrs. Steve.

Fate gives Steve an even bigger open handed slap in the mouth. The newspaper prints the lottery numbers, and Steve’s ticket has hit. (I always wondered if this were the legitimate lottery, or the neighborhood "number.") “$50,000!” the married couple sing in unison. Then reality intervenes: The ticket was in Steve’s wallet, which is now property of whomever hit Madame Zenobia’s. This is $50,000 in 1973 money, so Steve enlists Wardell to help him find out who robbed them. Being new to the ways of crime, their first few interviews don’t go so well. Wardell’s adventure includes that staple of Black folk interaction with the police: He fits the description.

After Steve bails out Wardell, Wardell has a conniption and demands they leave this investigation stuff to the professionals. This leads them to Sharp Eye Washington, Private Eye. This is the role Cosby auditioned for, and when you see it, just think of what might have happened if he’d gotten it. Sharp Eye is now played by the guy who originally was set to star in this picture, Richard Pryor. Pryor is only onscreen 4 minutes (if that much) but during that time, he owns Uptown Saturday Night. Skittish, nervous and as bootleg as the shitty cardboard sign on his door would indicate, Sharp Eye Washington is obviously a con man. He takes our heroes’ $50 and tries to leave before they can tell him what the job is. Going down the fire escape, Sharp Eye is met by the 5-0. “Your con days are over!” says the stern looking detective cuffing the fake detective. The cop lists Sharp Eye’s other persona, including a fake defense lawyer in my hometown of Jersey City, New Jersey. Like Steve and Wardell, I’ll bet some of my relatives got tooken by Pryor’s con man!

Our duo’s next step is to visit their local politician, who is probably a bigger crook than Sharp Eye Washington. Congressman Lincoln is a pandering, corrupt politician trying to hide just how ghetto he really is. In other words, perfect casting for the great Roscoe Lee Browne. When his secretary informs him that there are some “kind of ordinary” people there to see him, Lincoln says “CONSTITUENTS?!!” Before welcoming them, Lincoln has to make some quick interior decorating changes to his office.

Congressman Lincoln Goes From This...

...To this. Just like a damn politician!

Congressman Lincoln’s all set to help until he discovers the crime took place at “that den of iniquity” Madame Zenobia’s. In the middle of his stern lecture about the evils of illegal gambling, in walks Mrs. Lincoln a.k.a. Leggy Peggy! She was introduced to Zenobia’s by the Congressman himself. Her street vernacular makes Lincoln cringe, but she gives Steve and Wardell some advice on where they can next look for information. “Look up Little Seymour Pettigrew,” she tells them, but warns that Little Seymour is a bad, bad man.

Little Seymour sounds like Little Caesar, and indeed we get a character Edward G. Robinson could have played. Before we do, Wardell and Steve see firsthand how rough the bar they’re about to enter is. A guy gets thrown out, makes an attempt to go back and gets an ass kicking before he gets through the door. Steve is ready to go, but Wardell immediately starts psyching him up. The woof tickets Bill Cosby sells in this sequence are what you paid to see when you rented this movie. “If the dude mess with me, I'ma knock him out. You know why? Cuz I’m from OFF THE CORNERS!!” Wardell yells, promoting his toughness to anyone who will listen.

 "...cuz I'm from OFF THE CORNERS!!!" And yes, The Cos is giving The Finger.

The woofing continues. Wardell walks into this bar asking for Little Seymour and his bodyguard, Big Percy. When a guy tries to jump bad, Wardell beats him up easily. Maybe there IS something to that “off the corners” jive after all. Steve gets in on it, playing the dozens and calling Little Seymour a “corny little runt.”  You can feel Poitier the actor finally cutting loose and enjoying every minute of it.

Mr. Tibbs Plays The Dozens!

But Steve, as so many other Negroes before him have done, sells one too many woof tickets. Just as Wardell is advising Steve to “say something about his Mama,” Little Seymour shows up in the guise of one half of the uber-talented Nicholas Brothers, Harold Nicholas.  “I’m Little Seymour,” Nicholas announces. He is indeed little, but the scowl on his face makes him 12 feet tall. Literally 12 feet tall is Seymour’s bodyguard. “I’m Big Percy,” says he, and his booming voice reverberates through the speakers. The two of them look like the precursor to Master Blaster in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.

Mutt and Jeff are about to open a can of Whup Ass!

Wardell sees this shit, and immediately starts back pedaling. Writer Wesley said that, in the script, the scene was to have his heroes turn and run from the bar. This entire scene is improvised by the actors, including Cosby, who is funnier than he has ever been onscreen in this one moment. “You see,” he begins before launching into this incredibly convoluted excuse about hospitals, the war, grandmothers, mental disorders and doctor’s cards. Transcribing it would do it no justice, so you’ll need to see this for yourself.

"If you notice, uh, Mr. Seymour, he never said nothing 'bout your mama..."

After all that woof ticket refunding, Little Seymour responds as expected. He tells Wardell “that story you just told is BULLSHIT.” After saying he had nothing to do with the robbery, Little Seymour proceeds to whip both Steve and Wardell’s asses thoroughly. I don’t know why Little Seymour needed a bodyguard. His karate moves and leaps through the air were enough to induce cardiac arrest in any opponent. Even after crashing through the bar, Little Seymour hops back up for more ass beating.

"Here's a little something for niggas who loud-talk Little Seymour!"

“What did he hit me with?” Steve asks Wardell during their recuperation at Steve’s house. “His hands or his feet?” “Both!” says Wardell. “At the SAAAME time!”

With that lead now dead, the guys try Leggy Peggy’s other suggestion, Geechie Dan Buford. Geechie Dan’s portrayer is Poitier’s Buck and the Preacher cohort, Harry Belafonte. If Little Seymour were Edward G..Robinson, Geechie Dan is Brando’s Don Corleone. Belafonte stuffs his face with cotton, adds a Southern swagger to his voice and looks menacing as hell. Just to screw with the audience. The first thing we see Geechie Dan do is slurp down a raw egg, followed by pills and that Vicks thing you shove up your nose. “Whatchu suckas want?” he asks.

Those suckas want to know if Geechie Dan knocked over Zenobia’s. Dan says he didn’t and threatens to knock Steve’s head into another zip code. “Sucka if you don’t get outta here, they’re going to be pickin’ yo’ head up from across the street!” Before anyone can leave, the bar is ambushed and shot up in spectacular fashion. Geechie, his men and our heroes escape, but now Dan thinks he’s been set up by Steve. “Silky Slim did this,” he asks them later, interrogating them in an abandoned area. To get out, Steve admits Silky Slim set him up. He has no idea who Silky Slim is. “Put these dogs to sleep,” Geechie Dan tells his henchmen.

As Steve and Wardell hilariously fight for their lives (what joy to see Poitier doing slapstick!), Silky Slim shows up. Any vet of Blaxploitation would know exactly who robbed Madame Zenobia’s based on voice alone, and would have waited for Calvin Lockhart to show up in this picture. Show up he does, and when he utters his previous Churchill line, the guys know they have their man. Using that fake lawyer letter, which was taken during the robbery, as a ruse to get Geechie Dan to partner with Silky Slim, Steve and Wardell get one step closer to getting their hands on that ticket. Dan and Slim think the letter is the key to $300,000 worth of diamonds hidden in a law office. Slim brings all the loot to Steve’s church in a suitcase, bringing our heroes even closer to that wallet.

Uptown Saturday Night climaxes at that church picnic, the one with supposedly no joy juice, and it asks just how far would you go to retrieve $50,000 of 1973-era money. I felt the same way I did when I first saw this film on a double bill in 1975—these guys go farther than I would have. There’s a happy ending, and a reprise of “How I Got Over” by an uncredited choir that shouldn’t have gone unknown. It’s a rousing number, and though they’re talking about a different kind of getting over, it’s a fitting way to end a film that shows how to get one over on the Mob.

Next Saturday, I’ll do this again with Let’s Do It Again.