Uptown Saturday Night

Despite it's obvious lack of a huge budget and the wildly out-of-style fashions and slang (yes, kids..we really DID dress and talk like that back in the '70's...I KNOW...I was THERE) UPTOWN SATURDAY NIGHT shouldn't be passed up when it's shown on your cable or satellite provider stations.

Sidney Poitier (who directed) and Bill Cosby play two working stiffs who sneak out of their homes to hang at Madame Zenobia's, a high-class after-hours joint. After bluffing their way in, they immediately set about enjoying themselves at the gambling tables and are on a roll when the joint is robbed. The two consider themselves lucky to have gotten out alive, but then Poitier's character finds out he's got a winning lottery ticket worth $50,000(don't laugh..back in '74, that was a LOT of money) and the two pals start a frantic search to find the robbers and locate the winning ticket (it's in a wallet taken during the robbery)

UPTOWN SATURDAY NIGHT is filled with quirky and oddball hustlers, grifters, crooked politicians, ghetto gangsters and cheap floozies, all brought to life by some of the most talented black actors of the day. And the movie also has two of the most beautiful actresses ever to be filmed, namely Rosalind Cash and Paula Kelly. Poitier and Cosby encounter a series of very funny adventures as their hunt for the winning lottery ticket forces them into a partnership with Geechy Dan Buford (an outlandishly hilarious Harry Belafonte) and Silky Slim (Calvin Lockhart) in order to get it back. Can the two working stiffs outhustle and outwit the hordes of street-wise slicks standing between them and a fortune? Watch the movie to find out and I think you'll agree that its worth the time to find out the answer.

Sidney Poitier and Bill Cosby made two other films in this kind of comedy/caper genre. LET'S DO IT AGAIN is just as good (with a thrilling and side-splitting foot chase near the end and Jimmy J.J. Walker as the heavyweight champion boxer of the world) but A PIECE OF THE ACTION is a little bit more on the serious side with an added dose of social commentary...still, during the blaxplotation era of the '70's, these films were a delightful alternative to the 'kill-whitey-stick-it-to-The-Man-superbrotha-pimpin'-and-shootin-' movies that were also being produced then. I recommend all three of them very highly. Enjoy.

This was the first of 3 movies with Sidney Poitier and Billy Cosby. They have great chemistry as they move through this story of friends spending a night out and then get robbed. They were not supposed to be there in the first place. The supporting stars provide great comic relief. The wives in the movie are great women of African American theater. Harry Belafonte does a hilarious send up of Marlon Brando from "The Godfather". Flip Wilson and Richard Pryor also have parts in the movie and are hilarious. There are a number of great scenes with bill and Sidney running and escaping the gangsters and the end is definitely worth it!

In reviewing movies in chronological order that featured African-Americans for Black History Month, we're now at 1974 with Uptown Saturday Night. This was the first of three buddy comedies that paired Sidney Poitier with Bill Cosby. This was also Poitier's third directorial assignment after Buck and the Preacher and A Warm December. Instead of the perfect professional characters superstar Sidney had been playing for years, here he's just a working class man named Steve Jackson who's pals with Cosby's Wardell Franklin. As Steve's wife Sarah, Rosalind Cash has some nice, and partially racy, dialogue with Poitier but Ketty Lester seems wasted as Wardell's spouse Irma. With a script by Richard Wesley, Poitier shows some amusing touches though it does take a while for the story, about getting robbed as the two leads spend the night at an illegal gambling joint called Zenobia's before Steve finds out his winning lottery ticket was among the stolen items, to kick into gear. When it does you get treated to a hilarious supporting cast like Flip Wilson as the Reverend, Richard Pryor as Sharp Eye Washington, Roscoe Lee Browne as Congressman Lincoln (dig the way he turns a frame of Nixon to that of Malcoln X and then puts on his African digs when he meets his "constituents" Steve and Wardell), Paula Kelly as Lincoln's wife Leggy Peggy who the boys previously met at Zenobia's, and dancer Harold Nicholas as Little Seymour Pettigrew. That last character has a hilarious encounter with Cosby and Poitier himself cuts loose with some jokes you didn't think would come out of him. Also loved many of the "fights" the Cos instigates. Then there's Calvin Lockhart as Silky Slim and Harry Belafonte as Geechie Dan Beauford. These are rival gangsters that Steve and Wardell seek out to help find the stolen goods. Belafonte looks like he's having the time of his life impersonating Marlon Brando's Godfather role though I found him fitfully amusing like when he threatened to "knock the black off" Poitier and Cosby. Still, Uptown Saturday Night was a mostly enjoyable comedy that I bought on DVD with A Piece of the Action on the disc's other side. Dig Cosby's beard!

Some one said not a great movie. Are you out of your mind. Any movie with Bill Cosby and Sidney Poitier is the best. They don't make movies like those anymore. Please if you haven't seen Uptown Saturday Night, A Piece of The Action, and Let's do It Again. SEE THEM YOU WILL NOT BE DISSAPOINTED AT ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just saw - again - Uptown and was amazed - again - by the chemistry of the cast and the sheer genius of Bill Cosby. It is definitely dated, style-wise, but it is as contemporary as they come as far as the 'buddy' genre goes. Although Cosby is the focus and star, with Belafonte, Lockhart and Pryor, too, stealing their scenes, one of my favorites is Poitier 'loudtalking' a crime lord. The language is not good, otherwise I'd suggest this is a good movie for older children, but with a little guidance, it would be OK for them, too. Wish there were more movies like this now, but it is a 'classic' in the sense that it overcomes any decade-specific details - the broad comedy and the sharp witty dialog are timeless.