Review of Cornbread, Earl and Me (1975) by Stuart K — 27 Apr 2014

Directed by Joseph Manduke (Jump (1973), Vengeance (1977) and Beatlemania (1981)), and based on the 1966 novel Hog Butcher by Ronald Fair. The book was written during a time of racial tension in the United States, by the time the film was made, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had long been passed, but racial tension still remained.

This family drama shows what was going on at the time. In a gritty urban neighbourhood, Nathaniel Hamilton (Keith Wilkes) is an aspiring basketball played nicknamed Cornbread, and he's about to be the first kid from the neighbourhood to enrol in college on an athletic scholarship, which pleases his young friends Earl Carter (Tierre Turner) and Wilford Robinson (Laurence Fishburne).

But all that comes crashing down when Cornbread is accidentally mistaken for a criminal by the local police, and is brutally gunned down in cold blood. Earl and Wilford are devastated, and a riot ensues, but the police try to cover up the murder by using intimidation to make sure no witnesses take the stand.

It's a sort of African-American version of a Ken Loach film, very gritty and it doesn't flinch away from the urban grime and filth. It has some good performances, and it was Fishburne's debut performance too.

But it's a film which had it's finger on the pulse of African-American attitudes in urban slums at that time.