Harlem Nights
Harlem Nights is a 1989 comedy-drama crime film starring Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor. The film also featured Michael Lerner, Danny Aiello, Redd Foxx, Della Reese and Murphy's brother Charlie Murphy. Murphy and Pryor star as a father-and-son team running a nightclub in late-1930s Harlem, New York while contending with gangsters and corrupt police officials.
Murphy wrote, and directed the film (Murphy was nominated for Worst Director at the 10th Golden Raspberry Awards, his first and only directorial effort; the film won Worst Screenplay) and served as an executive producer. He had always wanted to direct and star in a period piece, as well as work with Pryor, whom he considered his greatest influence in stand-up comedy. Harlem Nights was a critical failure, but a financial success, grossing 3 1/2 times the amount it cost to make it (worldwide) and is well known for starring three generations of black comedians (Foxx, Pryor, and Murphy).
Plot
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In Harlem, New York, 1918, Sugar Ray (Richard Pryor) has a small-time dice game going in the back of his candy store. After nearly being killed by an angry man who lost to Ray, he's saved when an 8-year old errand boy shoots the man in the head. The orphan, who goes by the name 'Quick', becomes the 'good luck charm' for Ray and grows up with him. 20 years later (1938), Sugar Ray and a grown-up Quick (Eddie Murphy) now run a highly successful club called "Club Sugar Ray" in 1930s Harlem. The club is a speakeasy, with a brothel in the back run by tough talking madam Vera (Della Reese).
Into the club walks Tommy Smalls (Thomas Mikal Ford), who works for the notorious gangster Bugsy Calhoun (Michael Lerner) at the Pitty Pat Club, and Calhoun's mistress, Miss Dominique LaRue (Jasmine Guy). Smalls and LaRue are 'visiting' the club to check it out and report back to Calhoun, who has received word that Club Sugar Ray is outgrossing him on a nightly basis. Ray tells Quick to check them out, but not to mess with Miss LaRue as she's Calhoun's mistress. Calhoun plans to muscle Ray and Quick out of the profits generated by their club. He sends corrupt police detective Phil Cantone (Danny Aiello) to check Ray out. He visits Ray at his home and initially asks if Ray is the owner of the club, which he denies (Ray's front for the club was that he owned a candy store for 20 years). The next night, Cantone shows up at the club, threatening to shut them down unless Calhoun gets a cut of their action or else.
Knowing he's been all but forced out of business, Ray decides to shut down, but acknowledges that many of his employees have families and refuses to close without making sure they're provided for. He calls a meeting of all his workers to formulate a plan. An upcoming heavyweight championship fight taking place in a few days between challenger Mickey Kirkpatrick and defending champion (and loyal Club Sugar Ray patron) Jack Jenkins (Stan Shaw) intends to command a lot of money. The plan is for them to place a bet on Kirkpatrick to make Calhoun think that they had talked Jenkins into throwing the fight, thereby fixing it. The plan also calls for the robbery of all of Calhoun's booking houses (he owns all of them in the city) to generate even more revenue by hijacking Richie Vinto, the pick-up man they use every year. This part of the plan calls for Vera to use a girl that could turn him out. Vera replies, "I got a girl whose pussy is so good, if you threw it up in the air it would turn into sunshine."
Ray sends Quick to check out Tommy Smalls, and tells everyone else to be ready to move as they're in no position to fight Calhoun. Quick visits Smalls' apartment, but finds that Smalls has been executed, having been accused by Calhoun (and killed by Cantone) of coming up short with the nightly receipts at the Pitty Pat Club. As he's leaving Smalls' apartment building, Smalls' brother (played by Arsenio Hall) sees him and goes to check on his brother. Earlier in the day, Quick had received an invitation to dinner from Dominique LaRue. The invitation turned out to be a recruiting pitch from Bugsy Calhoun to manage the Pitty Pat Club with Miss LaRue. Quick refuses the offer, but Calhoun doesn't give up so easily. He sends Miss LaRue to seduce Quick, even to go so far as to kill him. When her attempt to kill him fails, Quick turns the tables and kills her. To complicate matters even more, Smalls' brother has discovered that Tommy is dead and wants revenge on Quick, since he was the last person seen leaving Smalls' apartment building. A car chase (with Smalls' brother's henchman Junior being accidentally killed by him in the process) and gunfight ensues. Quick tries to tell his pursuers that he had nothing to do with killing Tommy Smalls, but they don't believe him. In three effortless shots, Quick kills Smalls' brother and his two remaining thugs with ease and disappears into the night.
Quick arrives at Ray's house later to report on the night's happenings. He explains that he has killed Dominique LaRue, killed Smalls' people, and Bugsy Calhoun's attempt to recruit him. Ray tells Quick to calm down (Quick is furious that someone has been trying to kill him all night and claims that he's no punk - even goes so far as to say "It's not where you shoot, but who you shoot.") Ray explains that Quick needs to be patient, let the plan work, and to lie low (once Calhoun finds out that Quick has killed his mistress he's going to want revenge).
The following night, Cantone arrives at Club Sugar Ray to shut them down. Everyone is arrested and sent to jail. The next morning, Ray visits Club Sugar Ray, which has been gutted by a fire (intentionally set by Calhoun's people), one last time. Knowing it's time to leave at this point, he decides to execute his plan. Later that morning, Ray walks into the police station and asks what the bail amount is to release everyone arrested. He's told by the desk sergeant that it's $7500. Ray flips a large sum of money to the desk seargeant and requests a receipt. Everyone is released and picked up in limos, much to the surprise of the arresting officers and the desk seargeant.
Throughout all of this is the smaller subplot of the relationship between Vera and Quick. Earlier in the movie, Quick had accused Vera and her 'girls' of coming up short, thereby accusing her of stealing. Vera challenged Quick to a fight, to which she was beating him until he hit her with a garbage can. She replies by pulling a razor on him. He in turn pulls his gun and threatens to shoot her toe off. After Vera dares him, (and with several witnesses present) Quick shoots Vera's pinky toe off, forcing her to walk with a cane for the rest of the movie.
While the plan is working, Sugar Ray, Quick, Bennie Wilson (Redd Foxx) & Vera are all at Bennie's house outside the city, while Calhoun's henchman are looking for him.Ray asks if Quick had apologized to Vera for shooting her in the foot. Though Quick defends his actions and assumes that the matter was simply forgotten about, Ray reminds him that he owes her at least that. It's revealed in the following scene that Vera, like Ray, was a surrogate parent to him as a child. She dismisses his apology and sends him from the room, but quick doesn't exit before telling her he loves her too, acknowledging her forgiveness.
Vera's girl (Sunshine, played by Lela Rochon) successfully seduces Richie Vinto. She convinces him that she also had a pickup to make and she was going to be stuck out in the cold with all her 'stuff'. Richie agrees to pick her up on the way as he's picking up the money from the booking houses.
As he's picking Sunshine up, Richie gets into an accident with a car driven by Bennie (who is myopic and wears very thick glasses) and Vera (as Ray's henchman Jimmy (Charlie Murphy) has the switch to the traffic light and secretly changes the light from green to red). Ray and Quick, disguised as policemen, arrive on the scene and attempt to arrest Richie. They tell him that he's riding around with the notorious heroin dealer known as Lady Heroin and they were going to take both of them in. Quick attempts to switch the bag that held Calhoun's money with the bag of 'stuff' that Sunshine had placed in the car, but before he can two white policemen arrive. Richie pulls one of them aside and explains that he's on a run for Bugsy Calhoun and they eventually let him go. Around the corner, Cantone had been following Richie in case someone tried anything.
In the meantime, the fight had already started. At first it seemed like it was going to be evenly matched, but that turned out to not be the case. At the Pitty Pat Club, Freddy and Willie, two of Ray's men walk into the crowded club and begin shooting in the air, advising everyone to get out. Freddy lays a bomb and the two hastily exit the club and leave before it blows up. Calhoun finally realizes that the fight was not fixed as he originally thought, and receives word that his club has been destroyed. Quick and Ray arrive at a closed bank and go inside, followed closely by Cantone. Cantone attempts to catch Ray and Quick in a burglary, but then realizes that he's been set up as one of Ray's men is pointing a gun at his head. The men seal Cantone in an old bank vault and warn him that there's enough air to last until the next day, give or take a couple of hours. (They also advise him to take sips of air instead of deep breaths because he may run out sooner if he does.)
Calhoun returns to his home, furious that his club has been firebombed and that he was tricked into betting against the champ. When Richie arrives to deliver Calhoun's money, he realizes that the bags had been switched, and he has to explain the incident with 'Lady Heroin'. Bugsy tastes one of the bags and notices that its powdered sugar, then realizes who has duped him. He then receives a visit from Vera, who tells them how she did not want to be mixed up in the whole idea of robbing him and tells Bugsy where to find Ray and Quick. Believing her story, Bugsy gives her his phone number and tells her to call him if she has any problems with Ray.
Bugsy and his men arrive at Ray's house and walk in, expecting the house to be full. When they find an empty house, Calhoun suspects a trap, but one of his men gets anxious and trips the bomb wired into the door. Bugsy and his men are killed. Later, near the waterfront, Ray and Quick are talking to the two men who were also disguised as policemen earlier that night. They had anticipated that Cantone would follow the money and set it up so that it looked like they were being reprimanded by two white officers. They paid the men for their service, then get into their car and head for parts unknown - alive to see what life outside Harlem has to offer them.
[edit] Cast
Eddie Murphy ... Quick
Richard Pryor ... Sugar Ray
Redd Foxx ... Bennie Wilson
Danny Aiello ... Phil Cantone
Michael Lerner ... Bugsy Calhoune
Della Reese ... Vera
Berlinda Tolbert ... Annie
Stan Shaw ... Jack Jenkins
Jasmine Guy ... Dominique La Rue
Vic Polizos ... Richie Vento
Lela Rochon ... Sunshine
David Marciano ... Tony
Arsenio Hall ... Crying Man
Thomas Mikal Ford ... Tommy Smalls
Charlie Murphy ... Jimmy
Robin Harris ... Romeo
Desi Arnez Hines II ... Young Quick
Vogliamo che la legge arrivi in luoghi tenebrosi come Piazza-Italy,la chat italiana di Aol, dove si commettono violazioni vergognose dei dirtti civili.
venerdì 27 novembre 2009
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