This practice is even more acute in Barry Shear\u2019s 1972 urban action drama Across 110th Street <\/em>(newly streaming on Amazon Prime Video<\/a>), working as the film does from the notion that the streets of the city create borders \u2013 impassable ones, if you know what\u2019s good for you. The thesis of the title (and title song) is that 110th Street, on the southern edge of Harlem, is the clear demarcation line between white and black New York. But organized crime creates strange bedfellows, and no sooner has that opening song ended than a trio of black stick-up men have burst into the doors of a Harlem apartment where a group of white mob underlings are picking up numbers money. A bloodbath ensues, leaving seven dead, from the worlds of white organized crime, black organized crime, and police. These three circles will continue to both collide and converge over the 100 or so minutes that follow.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat else brings whites to Harlem but business?\u201d muses Lt. William Pope (Yaphet Kotto), the young black police detective assigned to lead the investigation, much to the chagrin of long-timer Captain Frank Marshall (Anthony Quinn, who also co-produced). In a closed-door meeting, their superior explains to Frank that the \u201cpoliticians feel\u201d that Pope should head this racially complex case up, \u201cbecause he\u2019s black,\u201d assuring the white detective that \u201cIt\u2019s just politics\u201d \u2013 you see, the appearance<\/em> of progress is as good as actual progress. (Better, frankly!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n And thus, as in many a cop picture, the polar-opposite cops are paired up: the young, black, idealistic rookie with the old, white, corrupt veteran. (Pope is such a straight arrow, he doesn\u2019t even drink, to which his new partner retorts, \u201cYou will, Pope. You will.\u201d) Like the contemporaneous Serpico<\/em>, Badge 373, <\/em>and The Seven-Ups<\/em>, Across 110th Street<\/em> bluntly interrogates the law and disorder within the NYPD itself, a chaotic environment thanks not only to the disarray of the city but also to the effect of Miranda<\/em>-era changes in policing policy. (\u201cLook, I am sick and tired of your liberal bullsh*t,\u201d Marshall rages at his new partner. \u201care you a cop, or one of them social workers?\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n It plays, in spots, like an answer record to the Harlem bar scene in The French Connection<\/em>, wondering how effective the old-fashioned tough white cop would really be in a neighborhood like this one. The answer, it seems, is not very<\/em>, though Luther Davis\u2019s script doesn\u2019t skew too far in the other direction either; Pope spends the picture learning the difference between theory and practice, particularly when Marshall\u2019s sources turn out to have some value \u2013 and the tip that cracks the case for them comes from Doc Johnson (Richard Ward), a black underworld figure who\u2019s had Marshall on the payroll for years and seeks to put the young \u201ccollege boy\u201d in his pocket as well. (It\u2019s worth noting that the film was released on December 19, 1972, eight days before the final report of the Knapp Commission\u2019s investigation of the NYPD, detailing widespread police corruption within the department and depending heavily on the testimony of Frank Serpico.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The NYPD isn\u2019t all that\u2019s changing. Nick D’Salvio (Anthony Franciosa), described by Doc as \u201cthe old man\u2019s son-in-law,\u201d is placed in charge of recovering the mob\u2019s money, because, as he’s warned, \u201cwe have to teach them a lesson or we lose Harlem.\u201d He comes uptown barking orders and expecting fealty, but Doc\u2019s not having it: \u201cI\u2019ve been in charge here 15 years, and nobody tells me how to run my business.\u201d He\u2019s wrong, of course; it\u2019s the early 1970s, a time for various changing of guards, and one of the subtler undercurrents of Across 110th Street<\/em> is its interest in young up and comers, whose new ways of thinking and doing things make waves but ultimately do little more than strengthen the status quo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Shear works in a blunt, direct style, looking down the barrel of his compositions (sometimes literally). Like much of its blaxploitation brethren, the budget is low, but Shear (and cinematographer Jack Priestley, who also shot such Grimy Gotham classics as Born to Win <\/em>and Where\u2019s Poppa<\/em>) use the small crew and lightweight gear to their advantage, adopting a scrappy, run-and-gun energy for the chase scenes and action beats. They also stage the climax on a series of city rooftops, a common solution for low-budget pictures in the era looking to grab some urban flavor without the hassles of crowd control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But contemporary critics resisted the film, and audiences stayed away; what little cultural currency it\u2019s retained is mostly due to Bobby Womack’s title song, which Quentin Tarantino memorably used to open Jackie Brown<\/em>. But Across 110th Street<\/em>\u2019s title sequence uses a different, darker version of the theme \u2013 more urgent, driving, and pressing \u2013 and the movie matches it. It\u2019s a brutal, grim piece of work, full of moments that aren\u2019t typically included in a picture of this type. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Chief among them is the scorching scene in which Jim (Paul Benjamin), one of the stick-up men, and his girlfriend Gloria (Norma Donaldson) discuss what he\u2019s done, and why. It\u2019s tough, angry scene, explicitly addressing the frustrations of the time and place, and the causality of the criminal; Jim, an ex-con, is grimly aware that his days are numbered, but he\u2019s seen the kind of life that\u2019s available to him, and he refuses to live it. \u201cIt was going to be one nothing job after another, and you\u2019d be working at that club still being propositioned every night,\u201d he tells her, pain in his voice, fear in his eyes. \u201cHow long would it be before we\u2019d need the bread so bad I\u2019d tell you do it?\u201d In this one scene, you can see the germ of the entire Dennis Haysbert subplot of Heat<\/em> \u2013 one of the elements that makes that movie such a complicated classic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/across-110th1-1024x637.jpg\")
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