''Ninth Street'' is a 1999 black-and-white drama, written by

Kevin Willmott Kevin Willmott (born August 31, 1959) is an Academy Award Winning American film director and screenwriter, and professor of film at the University of Kansas. He is known for work focusing on black issues including writing and directing '' Nint ...

. Filmed in the United States, the movie was primarily released in English.

Plot

Set in 1968

Junction City, Kansas Junction City is a city in and the county seat of Geary County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 22,932. Fort Riley, a major U.S. Army post, is nearby. History Junction City is so named from its ...

sometimes called "Junk Town" reflect on the history of "East Ninth Street" during the 1940s when famous jazz musicians played the nightclubs. In 1968, the area has deteriorated into strip clubs and cheap bars where Vietnam War draftees from nearby Fort Riley stop and drink. People in the group include a drunk (Don Washington) who lost a leg in World War II, a taxi dispatcher (

Isaac Hayes Isaac Lee Hayes Jr. (August 20, 1942 – August 10, 2008) was an American singer, actor, songwriter, and composer. He was one of the creative forces behind the Southern soul music label Stax Records, where he served both as an in-house songwri ...

), a saloon owner ( Queen Bey), and a crazy bag lady (

Kaycee Moore Kaycee Moore ( née Collier; February 24, 1944 – August 13, 2021) was an American actress. Born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, she was a member of the L.A. Rebellion, an alternative artistic movement developed at UCLA by Black filmmakers i ...

). (Nadine Griffith) who is trying to get out of the business, but is forced to work by a malicious boy friend (Byron Myrick) and the fact that she has to provide for her baby (Meagan Cordero). Martin Sheen also stars as a white preacher who likes the people in the area better than his own congregation.

Cast

* Don Washington *

* Nadine Griffith * Queen Bey * Byron Myrick *

* Martin Sheen * Arthur Blythe *

Production

Production on ''Ninth Street'' took five to ten years to complete. Wilmott began writing the script as a class assignment for film school; he drew upon stories his parents and their friends told him about Ninth Street in Junction City, Kansas and wrote the script as a stage play. Wilmott had initially approached several venues in Hollywood to make the film but was turned away. He ended up making the film in Kansas City, Kansas after returning to the city and achieving some success there. Isaac Hayes and Martin Sheen were confirmed as performing in the film; ''Ninth Street'' also marked the last film role of Kaycee Moore.

Release

''Ninth Street'' premiered on June 5, 1998 at the Gem Theater in Kansas City, Missouri. The film was given a screening at the

Beach Museum of Art The Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art is an art museum on the Kansas State University campus, located near Aggieville. Admission is free to the general public. The museum houses KSU's permanent art collection of Kansas and regional artists, as ...

in 2005 as part of

Kansas State University Kansas State University (KSU, Kansas State, or K-State) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Manhattan, Kansas, United States. It was opened as the state's land-grant college in 1863 and was the first public instit ...

's Fusion Week: A Prairie View.

Reception

Variety reviewed the film, calling it "an earnest effort that's compromised by inexperienced direction and nonexistent production values."

Thomas Fox Averill Thomas Fox Averill (born April 30, 1949) is a writer, novelist, and academic from Topeka, Kansas. His works, including ''Secrets of the Tsil Cafe'', ''The Slow Air of Ewan Macpherson'', ''Ordinary Genius'', and, more recently ''Rode'', have won w ...

covered ''Ninth Street'' for the Center of Kansas Studies at Washburn University, noting that it "resonates with the transitions faced by many Kansas communities. " In an interview with Wilmott, Jeff Loeb stated that "Through the film Willmott advocates a return to a sense of selfhelp and mutual dependency necessary to the salvation of the black community, a somewhat more conservative message than is normally seen in contemporary African American films. " The reviewer for ''Video Business'' rated the movie favorably, citing it as a "richly textured recreation of Junction City in the late '60s".

References

External links

* 1999 films 1999 drama films Films based on American novels American drama films American black-and-white films Films directed by Kevin Willmott 1990s English-language films Films with screenplays by Kevin Willmott 1990s American films {{1990s-US-film-stub