The vitals:
7:00 ~ Doors
7:30 ~ Black Is Not a Genre: A RAGE IN HARLEM

 “We’re not making no god damn comedy,” director Bill Duke exclaimed. Halfway through the production of 1991’s A RAGE IN HARLEM, producer Stephen Woolley, who’d sold the film as a comedy, realized he and Duke weren’t exactly on the same page. This tonal misalignment might explain the film’s mixed reviews, but Duke was right not to commit to a genre given the source material. Based on Chester Himes’ 1957 novel of the same name—the first in his Harlem Detective series—the film’s jazz-like fusion of gangster noir, dark comedy, and stylish period aesthetics are the perfect vehicle for the pulp pioneer’s heady mix of gritty violence, absurdist gallows humor, and cynical social commentary.

While the series’ more famous adaptation, 1970’s COTTON COMES TO HARLEM, centers its notorious detectives, Duke’s take protagonizes a naive funeral parlor accountant, his estranged hustler brother, and a mysterious love interest on the run from Mississippi with a trunk full of gold. Played by Forest Whitaker, Gregory Hines, and Robin Givens respectively, the characters inhabit a fully realized vision of 1950s Harlem, recreated and shot in, of all places, Cincinnati, Ohio. Danny Glover and a loaded lineup Black character actors round out the cast. The criminally underrated Givens is excellent in her film debut as the femme fatale with a heart of gold—a performance that led to her breakout role in BOOMERANG. This is also Bill Duke’s first theatrical release, and while his more popular follow-up, DEEP COVER, has received a recent critical resurgence, its predecessor remains an enduringly clever piece of genre cinema that’s equally deserving of a new audience. 

-Graham Cumberbatch

SEE YOU AT THE MOVIES
🔮