Joe Dante's Fleapit Flashbacks The Film Bulletin Reviews, 1969-1974 bank, machine-gunning numerous mobsters and


ACROSS 11OTH STREET


Excessive violence makes this black-white cops ‘n’ robbers melodrama a good bet for action houses where Anthony Quinn will broaden its appeal to mayhem fans of both races. Best prospects still lie in black situations. Rated R.


ACROSS 110TH STREET, which at times appears to be aspiring toward a Meaningful Statement about racism and society and injustice, really boils down to little more than a crash course in killing, maim- ing and torturing and succeeds only in being highly unpleasant “entertainment.” Any loftier concerns fade quickly and decisively into the background to make way for some of the most vicious violence to hit the screen in... well, in months, anyway. Like its punchy, bigoted cop “hero” (played by Anthony Quinn as if he were remaking REQUIEM FOR A HEAVYWEIGHT), the picture solves all its problems, conceptual and dramatic, by bashing somebody’s skull in. Needless to say, there’s a big audience slavering for this sort of fare and the United Artists release will be one of the bigger attractions for kill-crazy action fans, black and white, since it features antagonists and victims of both races. Bloodletting in a brotherhood vein, so to speak. Quinn, who co-produced, is a veteran Harlem precinct captain on the take from black gang boss Richard Ward. Quinn’s favorite pastime is beating up whimpering black suspects, which naturally cha- grins Yaphet Kotto, his new-breed black replace- ment who bridles with righteous indignation at Quinn’s outdated methods. When three black men steal the proceeds from a Mafia-run Harlem numbers


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cops, the Syndicate dispatches sadistic enforcer Anthony Franciosa to get the culprits. They’re sought by black gangsters and the police, and it’s simply one gratuitous slaughter after another, with Franciosa taking the honors as the most repulsive screen psycho since Andy Robinson in DIRTY HARRY. Cor- nering one of his prey, he gleefully crushes a bottle in the thief’s face, then beats him to a gurgling pulp. Parts of this sequence, in which Franciosa pounds his victim’s head to jelly, and subsequent castra- tion-death throes in an ambulance have been de- leted from prints now in circulation, but there’s so much other gruesome stuff that audiences may not miss it. Franciosa comes to an appropriate end when he is machine-gunned in the face by one of the thieves, an epileptic gone berserk who fires fren- ziedly at the remaining cast members before get- ting mowed down on a rooftop. Quinn, having outlived his usefulness, is shot by a black sniper. Luther Davis’ screenplay from Wally Ferris’ novel gets dumber as it progresses, depending on coinci- dences like having a fleeing thief grab a cab manned by a gangster who radios his whereabouts to the mob. Some of the violence is clumsily handled (one victim starts gushing blood before he’s shot) and, in most other respects, Barry Shear’s direction is without distinction. Performances range from okay to poor, and only the grimy Harlem locations lend a note of reality.


1972. United Artists (Film Guarantors Production). DeLuxe Color. 102 minutes. Anthony Quinn, Yaphet Kotto, Anthony Franciosa. Produced by Ralph Serpe and Fouad Said. Directed by Barry Shear.


Available from MGM Home Entertainment as one of their “Soul Cinema” DVD releases. Reportedly one of Quentin Tarantino’s favorite movies, the film’s theme song later became the main titles theme of JACKIE BROWN (1997).

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