Review of Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970) by Sgt. C — 26 Apr 2013

Terrific crime film featuring Chester Himes famous detectives Gravedigger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson. Ossie Davis directed this film that has a perfect blend of action, humor and some smart political undertones.

Godfrey Cambridge and Raymond St. Jacques play the detective pair and dominate the scenes they're in, but the film also features a cast of many familiar faces (even if you don't recognize their names), including Redd Foxx, Cleavon Little, Helen Martin, Leonardo Cimino, John Anderson and Eugene Roche.

Though often pigeonholed as a blaxploitation film, I feel this film deserves to be considered outside of that context because although it does feature a nearly all black cast and has some other trappings of the sub-genre, it is smart enough of a film that.