Stream Across 110th Street Online
Lundi, mars 1st, 2010 |
Stream Across 110th Street Online.
Movie Title: Across 110th Street Across 110th Street is available for streaming or downloading. |
Since it’s release in 1972 this film has fallen by the cinema wayside, being lumped into the blaxploitation genre - a purgatory from which it needs to be rescued. Labeling this film has tiny its audience appeal in the thirty years that have followed, but those of us who were fascinated with it then remain so now.
“Across 110th Street” is sparked by the kind of gritty and incisive urban realism that blaxploitation films are missing. It’s production values are an immediate tipoff that you are watching a gracious movie. The competent, skillful direction by Barry Shear; a apt yarn that hardly takes a breath; expansive Harlem plot shooting adds authenticity that makes it feel almost quasi-documentary.
It’s also highlighted by a enormous cast of obsolete A-list movie stars, B-movie regulars and a few performers getting their first chance in a meaningful role. Anthony Quinn, one of the films’ executive producers, plays a brutal, insensitive police detective with a prance of racism. Anthony Franciosa plays a cruel and ruthless Italian mobster tracking down his stolen money. Richard Ward plays a raspy voiced Harlem crime kingpin that Quinn tries to pressure; Ward will be recognizable to film buffs as a prisoner in the film “Brubaker” playing the pivotal role of Abraham. Paul Benjamin, the leader of the trio of thieves, appeared in the crucial role of the con ‘English’ in the terrific prison drama “Hasten From Alcatraz”. Antonio Fargas creates another of his patented smart, hip characters as one of the thieves. And finally, Yaphet Kotto gets his first indispensable film role playing the no-nonsense, by-the-book, newly assigned lieutenant who is refreshingly free of vulgarity - although he will occupy a truck when he needs to!
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Period detail keeps this film stuck squarely in the 70’s which is one of it’s strengths. The pulsating music salvage by Bobby Womack and J.J. Johnson perfectly matches the films moments of tension and transitional scenes. Womack’s catchy title song is another plus.
MGM has released this as share of it’s ‘Soul Cinema’ DVD collection in Widescreen format - that’s with the dismal bars on the top and bottom of the cover for those who don’t know - and it’s a gigantic transfer. Pair this movie with “The French Connection” for a gargantuan double feature.
Not a blaxploitation movie at all, this film is a luminous, animated, tough sunless crime drama that pulls no punches, and because of that is tranquil remarkably original today after 30 years. Made in 1972, it features an early performance by Yaphet Kotto as a by the book dark police lieutenant who has to work with a grievous, unruly white captain–Anthony Quinn in a very strong performance.
They’re after some dim hoods who slaughtered five men–three whites and two blacks–in a holdup that netted 300 mountainous. The getaway driver is played by Starsky and Hutch’s Antonio Fargas and is objective one of the several obedient performances that give this film staunch power.
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Another is turned in by Tony Franciosa playing a Mafia lieutenant who finds out about the hit and, with his henchmen, goes after the hoods. In one of many violent scenes, he finds Fargas’ character and slices and dices him in a Harlem whorehouse.
The dialogue here is remarkable more lustrous than in many dumber films and is another reason this is a right winner. When somebody talks–cop, hood, Mafioso, junkie, girlfriend–it’s natural, staunch, uncontrived, and completely credible. You understand who these characters are and you secure fervent because they’re not shooting bull–they’re telling it like it is.
The mix of this down to the bone talk and ’70s dress and behavior makes this a tremendously tantalizing film. The inclusion of violence is not gratuitous at all; it’s an integral section of what happens–and what has to happen, given the circumstances.
Highly recommended for fans of crime drama.
Tri Slim
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