Say “New York City in the 1970s,” and I immediately think of the gritty, blighted city that was the backdrop for movies such as The French Connection, Serpico, Report to the Commissioner, The Seven-Ups, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three.
As a teenager in a mid-size city in the South at the time, that New York had a certain appeal. It was familiar, yet very different. Bustling, lively, multicultural.
I had a chance to pinch-hit and pick this week’s movie for film club. Shaft (1971) had been on my short list several weeks ago, but it left the Criterion Channel at the end of March.
Looking for something similar, I came across the trailer for Across 110th Street. It had the vibe I was looking for, plus it starred Yaphet Kotto.
It’s in the channel’s Blaxploitation collection, but I categorize it more along the lines of a crime drama. I’m defining the Blaxploitation genre as movies made by Black creators for Black audiences with Black heroes. Across 110th Street is a mainstream film, but one that features a multiracial cast and that features a Black hero (and an anti-hero).
From the trailer, you’d expect Across 110th Street to be about a Black, by-the-books detective Lt. Pope (Kotto) confronting a white, veteran detective Capt. Mattelli (Anthony Quinn) for his antiquated, racist, and violent methods.
But it’s more than changing ways in the police department. The movie revolves around change.
As Italian mafiosi are picking up their $350,000 payout (about $2.4 million today) from Harlem mobsters, they are gunned down and the cash is stolen by three black men, who also kill two policemen during their escape.
What was intended to get the trio — played by Paul Benjamin, Ed Bernard, and Antonio Fargas — out of their Harlem poverty instead makes them targets of the two mobs and the police.
Throughout the movie, Doc Johnson (played by the wonderful Richard Ward), leader of the Harlem mob, seethes at having to kowtow to the overbearing, Italian made-man, Nick D’Salvo (Tony Franciosa). D’Salvo is trying hard to impress the don (Frank Mascetta) at all costs.
While the trio doesn’t get the change they desperately wanted, the Italian mob faces a hard change, and its Harlem competition asserts its dominance in the end. For the police, Mattelli resists change but knows he’s a throwback and his time is coming to a close. Pope is clearly the successor to the Mattelli-type cop, but in the end, it’s Doc Johnson who comes out on top.
It was my first time watching Across 110th Street, and it didn’t disappoint.