''A Rage in Harlem'' is a 1991 American

crime film Crime films, in the broadest sense, is a film genre inspired by and analogous to the crime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and its detection. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine ...

directed by

Bill Duke William Henry Duke Jr. (born February 26, 1943) is an American actor and film director. Known for his physically imposing frame, Duke works primarily in the action and crime drama genres often as a character related to law enforcement. Frequently ...

and loosely based on

Chester Himes Chester Bomar Himes (July 29, 1909 – November 12, 1984) was an American writer. His works, some of which have been filmed, include '' If He Hollers Let Him Go'', published in 1945, and the Harlem Detective series of novels for which he is be ...

' novel ''A Rage in Harlem''. The film stars

Forest Whitaker Forest Steven Whitaker (born July 15, 1961) is an American actor. He is the recipient of List of awards and nominations received by Forest Whitaker, various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a British Academy Film Award ...

Danny Glover Danny Lebern Glover (; born July 22, 1946) is an American actor, film director, and political activist. He is widely known for his lead role as Roger Murtaugh in the ''Lethal Weapon'' film series. He also had leading roles in his films include ...

Badja Djola Badja Medu Djola (born Bernard Bradley; April 9, 1948 – January 8, 2005) was an American actor from Brooklyn, New York who worked primarily within black film. He is best known for ''Mississippi Burning'', ''Penitentiary'', ''A Rage in Harl ...

Robin Givens Robin may refer to: Animals * Australasian robins, red-breasted songbirds of the family Petroicidae * Many members of the subfamily Saxicolinae (Old World chats), including: **European robin (''Erithacus rubecula'') ** Bush-robin **Forest ro ...

and

Gregory Hines Gregory Oliver Hines (February 14, 1946 – August 9, 2003) was an American dancer, actor, choreographer, and singer. He is one of the most celebrated tap dancers of all time. As an actor, he is best known for '' Wolfen'' (1981), '' The Cotton C ...

. Producer Stephen Woolley intended it to be a

comedy film A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending (black comedy being an exception). Comedy is one of the ol ...

, and several reviewers have described it as such, but this categorization has been disputed by director Bill Duke. The film premiered in competition at the 44th Cannes Film Festival in its Grand Palais, receiving a "five-minute

standing ovation A standing ovation is a form of applause where members of a seated audience stand up while applauding after extraordinary performances of particularly high acclaim. In Ancient Rome returning military commanders (such as Marcus Licinius Crassus a ...

." It was also shown at the 2nd

Stockholm International Film Festival The Stockholm International Film Festival ( sv, Stockholms filmfestival, italic=no) is an annual film festival held in Stockholm, Sweden. It was launched in 1990 and has been held every year since then during the second half of November. The w ...

Plot

It's 1956, in Natchez, Mississippi. Slim and his crew, Hank and Jodie, are negotiating with Lawrence, a fence; they're trying to sell the gold they stole in a mining robbery. The deal goes south, and under duress Lawrence discloses the that the only other person capable of fencing the gold is Easy Money in Harlem, New York. The Sheriff shows up, and in the confusion Imabelle, Slim's

gun moll A gun moll or gangster moll or gangster's moll is the female companion of a male professional criminal. "Gun" was British slang for thief, derived from Yiddish ''ganef'', from the Hebrew ''gannāb'' ( גנב). "Moll" is also used as a euphemism for ...

, drives off with the gold in a trunk, and travels to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. In Harlem, Jackson is a devout and naive young man, working as a bookkeeper for H. Exodus Clay at his funeral parlor. His estranged step brother, Goldy, is a small-time hoodlum and also impersonates a priest in order sell fake "tickets to heaven." Jackson has skimped to save $1,500. Imabelle arrives with her trunk, but has no money. She attends the Undertaker's Ball, looking for a source of support, and meets Jackson. She seduces him, and moves into his apartment. Slim and crew travel to Harlem, and enlist Imabelle to help them take Jackson's money, using "The Blow," a scam whereby money is seemingly changed to a higher denomination by baking it in an oven. They claim they can turn Jackson's $1,500 into $15,000, but he's reluctant at first. During the scam, the oven explodes and Slim bursts into the room, impersonating a

United States Marshall The United States Marshals Service (USMS) is a federal law enforcement agency in the United States. The USMS is a bureau within the U.S. Department of Justice, operating under the direction of the Attorney General, but serves as the enforcem ...

. Jackson bribes Slim with $200, but must steal the money from Mr. Clay since his money is now gone. Jackson learns that Slim has "arrested" Imabelle and taken her away, so he approaches Goldy to help find her, due to his knowledge of Harlem's criminal underworld. Goldie agrees, but insists that he retains the gold. Goldy learns the crew is using the gold to run a fake gold mine scam, and gives Jackson a fake bank roll in order to lure Gus, the crew's contact man. Gus and Jackson travel to the crew's headquarters, with Goldy and Big Kathy following. Goldy overpowers Gus, then he and Big Kathy enter the apartment posing as the police. Jackson runs up to the apartment, followed closely by uniformed police and the two detectives. In the ensuing melee, Gus is shot and a police officer has acid thrown in his face. The crew escapes with Imabelle in tow, and retreat to Slim's office. Jackson, Goldy and Big Kathy acquire the hearse from Mr. Clay's funeral parlor, in order to transport the gold. The crew departs again, leaving Imabelle with the gold. They drive by as Imabelle goes down stairs, and abduct her. They stop when they see the gold, which has been transferred to the hearse, and Slim kills Big Kathy when he intervenes. Goldy leaves with Imabelle, intending to avenge his death. Slim and crew meet with Easy Money the enact the sale of the gold, but Slim calls off the deal out of annoyance with him. There's a shoot out where Hank and Josie are killed. When Goldy bursts in, he is shot and Easy Money is mortally wounded. Slim escapes with Imabelle, and Jackson arrives to confront him. They tussle, but as Slim prepares to slit Jackson's throat it is Imabelle who shoots Slim dead. While Grave Digger and Coffin Ed apprehend Jackson for his initial theft of Mr. Clay's money, Imabelle leaves with the money from the deal, heading back to Mississippi. Mr. Clay makes bail for Jackson because he appreciates the business Jackson has drummed up for him; the money found on Slim's thugs will go towards their funerals, to be performed by Mr. Clay. Jackson hurries to the train station, where Imabelle has left $50,000 for Goldy and a similar sum for Jackson, along with a note telling him that he's too good for her. Jackson and Goldy briefly reconcile, then Jackson boards the train while leaving his money behind. Jackson and Imabelle reunite, and depart for Mississippi together.

Cast

as Jackson *

as Goldy/Sherman *

as Imabelle *

Zakes Mokae Zakes Makgona Mokae (5 August 1934 – 11 September 2009) was a South African-American actor of theatre and film. Life and career Mokae was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, moved to the United Kingdom in 1961, and to the United States ...

as Big Kathy *

as Easy Money *

as Slim * John Toles-Bey as Jodie * Tyler Collins as Teena * Ron Taylor as Hank *

Samm-Art Williams Samm-Art Williams (born Samuel Arthur Williams; January 20, 1946) is an American playwright and screenwriter, and a stage and film/ TV actor and television producer. Much of his work concerns the African-American experience. He was nominated ...

as Gus Parsons *

Stack Pierce Robert Stack Pierce (June 15, 1933 – March 1, 2016) was a Hollywood actor who was previously a boxer and professional baseball player.Speakers InternationaStack Pierce His acting career began in the early 1970s with television roles in th ...

as Detective Ed "Coffin Ed" Johnson *

Willard E. Pugh Willard Earl Pugh (born June 16, 1959) is an American actor with numerous film and television credits. He has appeared in notable mainstream Hollywood films such as ''The Color Purple (1985 film), The Color Purple'' and ''Air Force One (film), Ai ...

as Claude X *

Helen Martin Helen Dorothy Martin (July 23, 1909 – March 25, 2000) was an American actress of stage and television. Martin's career spanned over 60 years, appearing first on stage and later in film and television. Martin is best known for her roles as Wand ...

as Mrs. Canfield *

Wendell Pierce Wendell Edward Pierce (born December 8, 1963) is an American actor and businessman. Having trained at Juilliard School, Pierce rose to prominence as a character actor portraying roles both on the stage and screen. He first gained notoriety portra ...

as Louis *

T. K. Carter Thomas Kent Carter (born December 18, 1956) is an American actor. In films, he is mostly known for his many comedic performances, such as the street-smart Chester in '' Seems Like Old Times'' and the karaoke-singing Iceman in ''Ski Patrol''. He ...

as Smitty * Jalacy Hawkins as Jay "Screamin' Jay" Hawkins *

Beatrice Winde Beatrice Winde (born Beatrice Lucille Williams; January 5, 1924 – January 3, 2004) was an American actress. Her work as a character actor, and a singer, in theatrical, television, and film roles, spanned several decades. Life and career W ...

as Clerk *

George Wallace George Corley Wallace Jr. (August 25, 1919 – September 13, 1998) was an American politician who served as the 45th governor of Alabama for four terms. A member of the Democratic Party, he is best remembered for his staunch segregationist and ...

as Detective "Gravedigger" Jones

Movie compared to novel

The novel and the movie differ significantly in several ways. In the book, Harlem is shown as gritty and seedy, while in the movie it is relatively vibrant. Imabelle and Slim are married in the book, but this in not mentioned in the movie. Gold ore, which is actually fool's gold, is central to the novel, while in the movie it is real gold. In the novel, Goldy is Jackson's overweight twin brother who begs for

alms Alms (, ) are money, food, or other material goods donated to people living in poverty. Providing alms is often considered an act of virtue or Charity (practice), charity. The act of providing alms is called almsgiving, and it is a widespread p ...

and sells bogus "tickets to heaven" while

cross dressing Cross-dressing is the act of wearing clothes usually worn by a different gender. From as early as pre-modern history, cross-dressing has been practiced in order to disguise, comfort, entertain, and self-express oneself. Cross-dressing has play ...

as a nun. He is an informer to the police, and a drug addict who regularly shoots up morphine and cocaine

speedballs Speedball (or powerball) is a polydrug mixture of a stimulant (most often cocaine or amphetamine) with an opioid (heroin, morphine, and/or fentanyl) that may be taken intravenously or by nasal Insufflation (medicine), insufflation. Original spee ...

. In the movie, Goldy is Jackson's step-brother, a trim and dapper numbers runner and occasional bogus priest who does sell "tickets to heaven," but does not solicit donations, cross-dress, or take drugs. Grave Digger and Coffin Ed are feared for their ability to dish out sudden death in the novel, while the movie shows them to be buffoons. In the movie, the brothel keeper, Big Kathy, is an

androgynous Androgyny is the possession of both masculine and feminine characteristics. Androgyny may be expressed with regard to biological sex, gender identity, or gender expression. When ''androgyny'' refers to mixed biological sex characteristics i ...

woman. while in the book Big Kathy is a cross dressing man. Also, Goldie is much closer to Big Kathy in the movie; Goldy calls him "real family" as says "he's the only person I cared about." In the novel, Goldiy is murdered when Slim slits his throat, while in the movie he survives and is able to reconnect with his brother in the end. Both the film and novel have Jackson and Imabelle happily reunited in the end, but in the film they move to Mississippi, while in the book they stay in Harlem.

Development

William Horberg William Horberg is an American film producer and chair emeritus of the Producers Guild of America on the East coast. He is executive producer of ''The Queen's Gambit (miniseries), The Queen's Gambit'', a television miniseries released on Netflix ...

, eventually credited as an executive producer, got the project started when he optioned the rights to Himes' novel. Hornberg, a first-time producer approached John Toles-Bey, a Chicago-based actor with no screenwriting credits, to draft the film's first script; the development effort gained steam after Hornberg met Kerry Boyle of Palace Productions, and through the efforts of Boyle and Stephen Woolley, the film was sold to

Miramax Films Miramax, LLC, also known as Miramax Films, is an American film and television production and distribution company founded on December 19, 1979, by brothers Harvey Weinstein, Harvey and Bob Weinstein, and based in Los Angeles, California. It was ...

and given the

green-light To green-light is to give permission to proceed with a project. The term is a reference to the green traffic signal, indicating "go ahead". Film industry In the context of the film and television industries, to green-light something is to ...

. According to publicity leading up to the start of

principal photography Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production. Personnel Besides the main film personnel, such as actor ...

was the first of the two lead actors to commit to the film, described as an action-comedy with "very dark" comedy. Whitaker among others, was consulted as Boyle and Woolley sought an African American to direct the film, doing so because they believed "maintaining the cultural integrity of the novel demanded a black director"; they also wanted "someone who was older and secure enough to collaborate and make a picture that we could distribute widely, but who still had a passion for the material." They chose Duke in part for his experience directing ''

Hill Street Blues ''Hill Street Blues'' is an American serial police procedural television series that aired on NBC in prime-time from January 15, 1981, to May 12, 1987, for 146 episodes. The show chronicles the lives of the staff of a single police station loca ...

'', experience that was key "because of the way that series mixed humor and violence." Duke later cast

to play the female lead after considering 300 women for the part.

Production

The film was shot in the

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

, neighborhood of

Over-the-Rhine Over-the-Rhine (often abbreviated as OTR) is a neighborhood in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. Historically, Over-the-Rhine has been a working-class neighborhood. It is among the largest, most intact urban historic districts in the United State ...

, whose "un- gentrified area of the old

downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business distric ...

lower depths stood in quite nicely for ... 1950s Harlem." About midway during production, it turned out that Duke and Woolley had undiscussed differences about the tone the film was going to take:

About halfway through we oolley and Dukewere looking at a scene, and I turned to Bill
uke Uke may refer to: People * Uke Clanton (1898–1960), Major League Baseball first baseman who played for one season. Nicknamed "Cat", he played for the Cleveland Indians for one game on September 21, 1922 * Uke Rugova * Sıtkı Üke (1876� ...
and said 'You know, that wasn't quite as funny as it was in the script. And I don't know why. And he said to me, 'We're not making no god-damn comedy.' I'd raised the entire money for this film on the basis that it was a comedy. It was Chester Himes, it was supposed to be funny. And a shiver went down my spine...I hoped that Bill was joking. But I realized he thought we were making ''
Porgy and Bess ''Porgy and Bess'' () is an English-language opera by American composer George Gershwin, with a libretto written by author DuBose Heyward and lyricist Ira Gershwin. It was adapted from Dorothy Heyward and DuBose Heyward's play '' Porgy'', itse ...
''.

Reception

Vincent Canby Vincent Canby (July 27, 1924 – October 15, 2000) was an American film and theatre critic who served as the chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1969 until the early 1990s, then its chief theatre critic from 1994 until his death in ...

, reviewing the film for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', called it "painless, occasionally funny" but with a "heedlessly incomprehensible plot"; according to Canby, "Because the screenplay is so thin, the characters are revealed entirely by the actors who play them. Miss Givens does particularly well as a doxy with a heart of gold as well as a trunk full of it. She looks great and shows a real flair for absurd comedy. Mr. Hines, Mr. Whitaker and Mr. Glover also are in good form, as are Badja Djola, who plays Imabelle's intimidatingly large former lover, the guy she's stolen the gold from, and Mr. Toles-Bey, who, in addition to working on the screenplay, appears as one of the bad guys."

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

of the ''

Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago T ...

'' gave it 3 out of 4 and wrote: "What's best in the movie is the chemistry between Whitaker and Givens, who is surprisingly effective in her first feature role." Owen Gleiberman of ''

Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cul ...

'' was positive about the atmosphere, comedy, and raw acting talent, but critical of the plot which he called "a complete shambles". Gleiberman gave it "C-" grade. The film grossed $10.4 million in the United States.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Rage In Harlem 1991 films Films directed by Bill Duke American independent films African-American comedy films American comedy thriller films Films scored by Elmer Bernstein Films based on American novels Films based on thriller novels Films shot in Ohio Films set in Harlem Films set in the 1950s 1990s crime comedy films Miramax films American crime comedy films American crime thriller films 1991 directorial debut films 1991 comedy films 1990s English-language films 1990s American films