Hell Up in Harlem (1973) [Soul Cinema] – DVD

**½/**** Image A Sound B+ Commentary A+
starring Fred Williamson, Julius W. Harris, Gloria Hendry, Margaret Avery
written and directed by Larry Cohen

by Bill Chambers There have been wiser marketing decisions: MGM leaves Black Caesar out of their "Best of Soul Cinema" DVD set while including the film's sequel, Hell Up in Harlem. Having not yet managed to see Black Caesar for myself, I wondered if that's why Hell Up in Harlem left me as confused as I was entertained. But according to writer-director Larry Cohen in his DVD commentary, one of the finest I've ever listened to (and worth a purchase by itself), that ain't the half of it. In their infinite wisdom, AIP cashed in on a follow-up to Black Caesar so soon after its release that Cohen and star Fred Williamson–whose title character had perished at the end of the original, not that anyone seemed to care–had to shoot it in tandem with It's Alive! and That Man Bolt, respectively. Since those productions were situated on opposite coasts, Williamson couldn't film his lead role in Hell Up in Harlem until one or the other wrapped, resulting in a shake-and-bake screenplay whose main dramatic consideration was how to get away with an abundance of over-the-shoulder shots of the star. This is also why Williamson's character inexplicably decides to move to L.A., and why he boards a flight to Los Angeles at L.A.X. International.

Though Cohen is surprised that few critics at the time made a fuss over the picture's spotty plotting, I think it's in his favour that people who go to blaxploitation flicks will accept any excuse to commune with black performers–and in abandoning logic entirely for a series of brutal, funny, and largely improvised set-pieces that let ex-football star Williamson loose on unsuspecting extras (imagine a Richard Lester movie where The Beatles are homicidal maniacs), the picture's gonzo second half distracts from the creakiness of the enterprise. Blessedly dropped at the halfway mark, too, is an ape on the spinning-newspaper aesthetic of early Warner Bros. gangster movies that, combined with a cast bedecked with borderline-anachronistic fedoras, dates Hell Up in Harlem in an ineffably white way (the '70s' fetishism for the Prohibition era was the stuff of George Roy Hill)–and can't help but make Hell Up in Harlem play like a dry run for the Michael Keaton spoof Johnny Dangerously. Nevertheless, Cohen, whose eye for locations and guerrilla courage to roll without a permit lend his potboilers a vérité quality that may finally owe more to the French New Wave than to Roger Corman, deserves points for rising to the challenge, even if the outcome is mostly risible.

THE DVD
MGM's 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen DVD is on a par with Foxy Brown's: in other words, it gleams like a new penny. Yes, Hell Up in Harlem was a popular picture, but that hardly guaranteed it wouldn't wilt in storage. The Dolby 2.0 mono audio is similarly strong, despite the soundtrack remaining a missed opportunity. As Cohen details in his feature-length yakker, when contract negotations broke down between AIP and James Brown, the singer kept his already-completed score for himself. Eventually released on vinyl as "The Payback," it would go on to become his most successful record, in addition to one of the most sampled albums in history. (Apparently, some music cues were further changed for this version of the film, though none are specified and an Internet search didn't turn up any clues.) Teaser and theatrical trailers for Hell Up in Harlem round out the disc.

94 minutes; R; 1.85:1 (16×9-enhanced); English DD 2.0 (Mono), French DD 2.0 (Mono); CC; French, Spanish subtitles; DVD-5; Region One; MGM