Directed by Barry Shear • 1972 • United States
Starring Anthony Quinn, Yaphet Kotto, Anthony Franciosa
Evocatively shot on location in 1970s Harlem, this gut-punching crime drama combines film noir and blaxploitation tropes into an explosive portrait of simmering social and racial tensions. Yaphet Kotto and Anthony Quinn are the NYPD officers—the former a straitlaced Black detective, the latter a racist and corrupt Italian American veteran of the force—assigned to investigate a violent robbery gone wrong. As they race across Harlem in search of the suspects, they must also contend with a ruthless Mafia boss (Anthony Franciosa) who has his own reasons for wanting to get his hands on the perpetrators.
Up Next in Fun City: NYC Woos Hollywood, Flirts with Disaster
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Little Murders
Directed by Alan Arkin • 1971 • United States
Starring Elliott Gould, Marcia Rodd, Vincent GardeniaThe black-comic stage play by writer and Pulitzer Prize–winning cartoonist Jules Feiffer provides the basis for Alan Arkin’s directorial debut, a surreal satire of urban alienation and the sensele...
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Black Caesar
Directed by Larry Cohen • 1973 • United States
Starring Fred Williamson, Gloria Hendry, Art LundA brutal assault at the hands of a racist cop changes the life of Tommy Gibbs (Fred Williamson), who will grow up to become the reigning head of Harlem’s Black mafia in this blistering blaxploitation...
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The Panic in Needle Park
Directed by Jerry Schatzberg • 1971 • United States
Starring Al Pacino, Kitty Winn, Alan VintA fragile romance unfolds against the backdrop of 1970s New York in this unsparing look at heroin addiction, scripted by Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne and directed by Jerry Schatzberg. Taking its t...
