BLACK CAESAR was one of the biggest hits from the peak of blaxploitation and it stands as one of the best examples of the genre. It’s sounds and images are imbedded in the psyche of anyone who frequented the drive-ins and inner-city grindhouses of the early 70’s- the great James Brown soundtrack, "Payin’ the Cost to be the Boss", Tommy Gibbs and his posse strutting down 125^th Street, the exploding turkey and swimming pool filled with Mafia blood, and the unforgettable sequence where the wounded godfather of Harlem makes his way back uptown, desperate and in search of revenge. It holds up pretty well over a quarter-century later despite its low-budget and dated look, retaining much of its raw power.

Larry Cohen, directing his second picture (1972’s BONE was his first), came up with the idea as a vehicle for Sammy Davis, Jr. The concept was to update the classic Warner Brothers gangster pictures of the 1930’s like THE PUBLIC ENEMY and LITTLE CAESAR, putting a modern black lead in the role once written for white ethnic actors like Cagney and Robinson. Selling Sammy on the idea didn’t pan out, so he pitched the idea to American International Pictures. AIP honcho Sam Arkoff gave him the green light and Cohen cast former NFL star and emerging drive-in action hero Fred "The Hammer" Williamson for the "title" role. We’ll never know how Sammy would have carried himself as Tommy Gibbs, but watching BLACK CAESAR now, it’s hard to imagine anyone else in the role. Williamson is tough, intimidating, stylish and charismatic as the ill-fated gangster. He makes a $40 suit look like a million bucks, and he gives off an aura of imminent and sudden violence that creates a palpable fear among every one he comes in contact with. It’s the Hammer’s best performance, maximizing his skills as a hard-boiled tough-guy.

The rest of the cast is packed with blaxploitation veterans, including Gloria Hendry as Gibbs’ girlfriend Helen. She became a cult-movie icon virtually overnight when she appeared as the first African-American "Bond Girl" in 1973’s LIVE AND LET DIE and she went on to co-star in SLAUGHTER’S BIG RIP-OFF, SAVAGE SISTERS, and BLACK BELT JONES. Julius Harris, best known as "Scatter" in SUPERFLY and for his own unforgettable turn in LIVE AND LET DIE as Yaphett Koto’s henchman Tee-Hee, portrays Gibbs’ father. He also appeared in SHAFT’S BIG SCORE, TROUBLE MAN, LET’S DO IT AGAIN, FRIDAY FOSTER and THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE. The late D’Urville Martin plays a shady preacher. The director of DOLEMITE co-starred with his friend Fred Williamson many times, most memorably in THE LEGEND OF NIGGER CHARLIE and it’s sequel, THE SOUL OF NIGGER CHARLIE as well as HAMMER, BOSS and THE BIG SCORE.

(WARNING- SPOILERS AHEAD)

As the movie opens, we’re in 1953. A teenage shoeshine boy in Harlem is shown assisting in a mob hit in broad daylight. Guns explode across the screen and the deep funk of James Brown’s "Down and Out in New York City" electrifies you as the credits appear on the screen. The shoeshine boy is a young Tommy Gibbs, who’s running errands for the mob. When a corrupt cop named McKinney (played appropriately over-the-top by Art Lund, who would again represent the evil whitey in Williamson’s BUCKTOWN two years later) beats him, permanently crippling his left leg. The young streetwise kid begins hatching a plan to exact revenge and has the foresight to enlist his nerdy friend Joe as the brains of his operation. Next thing we know, it’s 1965 and Tommy’s back on the street after a lengthy prison term. He immediately begins to implement his plan, executing a white gangster in a barbershop. He slices off his victim’s ear and delivers it to Cardoza (character actor Val Avery), the local godfather, right in the middle of his plate of spaghetti. The boss, impressed by Gibbs’ big iron gozongas and his fluent Sicilian learned in jail (ya’ knocka me out every time ya’ talk Sicilian,… it’s like a dubbed-in movie!") decides to give him a small piece of territory in Harlem to run for the mob. Cohen shows us his rapid rise in a montage effectively scored by Brown’s "Payin’ the Cost…" . Once in power, Gibbs and his gang, which now includes the shifty Reverend Rufus, explain how they’ll organize all the local rackets and funnel their money into legitimate businesses to benefit the black community. First though, to ensure their position, they steal ledgers from his old boss, which implicate cops, councilmen, congressmen and others in high places. Helen sings "Big Daddy" (written by Cohen’s wife, co-producer Janelle) while Gibbs murders the two henchmen in charge of the books.

Gibbs’ character takes a dramatic turn after he secures the incriminating ledgers. Now he has mad power in his eyes and he even invites his old nemesis McKinney, now on the fast track to a Commissioner job, over just to taunt him. McKinney snidely tells Gibbs, "Right now, you’re high as a junkie with a hundred dollar habit,… but everybody crashes, and I’ll be there." Gibbs buys the swank Manhattan apartment of his lawyer Alfred Coleman (played by William Wellman, Jr., son of the famous director) and everything in it- lock, stock and barrel to give to his mother, who happens to be their maid. Just like a good Italian or Irish mother in one of those WB gangster pics, Mama Gibbs (Minnie Gentry, a wonderful actress who did stage work and appeared in COME BACK CHARLESTON BLUE, GREASED LIGHTNING, BROTHER FROM ANOTHER PLANET and DEF BY TEMPTATION. She passed away in 1993) rejects his lavish gift and disowns his dirty money. Spurned by his only mama, Tommy parties, gets down with ho’s who AIN’T Gloria Hendry, and launches an all-out war on his mob bosses when he slaughters Cardoza’s men on their own turf. They take care of the rest of "the family" in an all-out assault on their Corleone-esque compound in California, poising Gibbs to take over as the Syndicate’s New York boss and godfather of all the ghettos. He’s even higher than before, and he’s not the same man he was- he rapes Helen just to impose his power over her. Just then his father, who left him and his mother in the depression, reappears in his life. The first thing Tommy does is drive him out to the ghetto ruins where he grew up to make him beg for his life. He lets him go and tells him that he never wants to see him again. Sensing imminent danger, Gibbs sends Helen off with Joe to California. Soon after, Mama dies and Gibbs spirals into depression and becomes increasingly more isolated. Even his father, looking for a handout just a little while earlier, rejects him when they meet at the funeral.

When his lawyer’s seductive wife (Myrna Hansen- Miss USA, 1953) tells him that his woman and his best friend are sleeping together, he heads west to kick some ass- he throws Joe down the stairs and shakes Helen so hard her wig falls off (!). He leaves their house that night completely alone, no one left to turn to. When McKinney comes to Beverly Hills looking for those elusive ledgers, Helen agrees to go back to New York as part of a plot to rid kill Gibbs and get the books. When she gets to Tommy’s apartment, he’s alone in a dark room with his gun. They make love; she steals his safety deposit key and passes it on to Coleman, who empties out the box with the ledgers and a bundle of cash. A hit is placed on Gibbs and we begin the most memorable scene in the film, when he is shot on Fifth Avenue in broad daylight, and stumbles uptown, to the shock of (real) passersby. From this point on, he’ll be slowly bleeding to death for the rest of the movie.

He jumps in a cab, which ends up getting chased through Manhattan by his would-be assassins. They fly down sidewalks, blow red lights and put the fear of god in NYC residents who didn’t know a film was being shot. We see images of domestic bliss with Helen and Joe and their two beautiful children, contrasted with Tommy’s desperate struggle to survive. Joe tries to help him and gets shot by McKinney who waits in the dark for a showdown with BLACK CAESAR. A struggle ensues which ends with Gibbs covering McKinney’s face with black shoe polish and making him sing "Mammy" while getting pistol-whipped. Stumbling back out on to the street, the barely conscious Tommy finds himself back in those ruins were he was first abandoned and almost killed his father. A gang of roving kids about the same age he was at the start of the movie find him stumbling through the rubble and kick the crap out of him in a scene the Cohen verifies as a direct homage to Bunuel’s LOS OLVIDADOS. James Brown takes it home with a slow blues and then a reprise of "…New York City." The immoral life of Tommy Gibbs condemned to end in a spurt of senseless violence. The end,… or IS it?

Of course, HELL UP IN HARLEM was the sequel later that same year of 1973. Larry Cohen discusses in audio commentary track how he intended BLACK CAESAR to end with the death of Williamson’s character, just like they did in the 30’s gangster movies he was emulating. But when they ran pre-release screenings, the audiences were infuriated that the movie ended with black youth senselessly killing one of their own brothers. Cohen personally went to all the New York theaters were the picture was opening and cut the scene from each and every one. The death was restored on the European release and has been on all video versions offered since. Still, just months later, Tommy Gibbs returned. How did it happen? Well, that’s another story, one which I suspect MGM will be giving us in the next round of "Soul Cinema" DVD’s.

SIGHT

BLACK CAESAR, and all the "Soul Cinema" DVDs, are presented in 1.85.1 aspect ratio, with 16x9 enhancement. I only noticed one moment, not more than a second of frames, with any scratches. The colors are sharper they’ve been since it opened at the Cinerama nearly 30 years ago. A very crisp black level also helps to restore the luster of this low budget classic.

SOUND

A good, solid Dolby Digital Mono 2.0 soundtrack, with great songs by James Brown and his band, including Fred Wesley and Lyn Collins. "Down and Out in New York City", "The Boss", "Blind Man Can See It" and "Mama’s Dead" are all-time Godfather of Soul classics. The Cohen audio commentary includes some priceless anecdotes about working with the hardest working man in show business.

EXTRAS

CONCLUSION

BLACK CAESAR is one of the best B-flicks of it’s time. Its spirit is in the Poverty Row studios and b-unit crime melodramas of a previous era, and it followed the conventions of those films more closely than it does other blaxploitation pictures. Cohen creates a stark and realistic visual style out of almost nothing- shooting without permits all over New York City (not to mention his own basement and his mother’s apartment). When Tommy and his father square off at the gates of the cemetery you can hear planes passing overhead, but instead of a distraction, it reinforces the realism of the world we’re watching flash in front of us. Williamson has some fine moments of real acting- watch how his eyes strain not to explode out of their sockets when his lawyer tells his boys to take the freight elevator. One noticeable flaw is Cohen’s under use of his female characters. Hendry’s supposed to be Gibbs’ ultimate femme-fatale, but we know hardly anything about her, seeing virtually nothing of her relationship with Tommy until he’s raping her. The role doesn’t give enough credit to an actress of Ms. Hendry’s ability. Still, there’s a lot more to chew on here than immediately meets the eye, and that’s why it still stands out as one of the best films of the blaxploitation era.

BLACK CAESAR is available from DVDEmpire.com

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