Cornbread, Earl and Me

The film does have a moderately intriguing mesage about polkice brutality and political corruption being obscenely hoisted upon African American communities in the urban United States. That said, the film is horribly dated, and elements of it are unnacceptable by today's standards. I mean the slain icon's name is Cornbread for Pete's sake!!! Where wre his cohorts Fried Chicken and Watermelon? Moreover, the societal corruption is presented in a way that makes us feel sad and powerless rather than angry and indignant. This is really a product of the early seventies Blaxploitation genre that would be utterly offensive by today's standards were it not for the still relevant and timely subject matter of the film. Worthwhile viewing for those who can differentiate between the message and the overdone elements. I fear, however, that the film's excess could leave white biggots laughing at the maudlin African American stereotypes on parade rather than addressing the political concerns of the film at all.

A kid witnesses the shooting death of the neighborhood basketball star. The basketball player had been mistaken by the police as a crime suspect. The kid is subjected to harrassment from the policement involved to keep quiet about what he knows. The cops even go so far as to intimidate his mother. This is an early film appearance of Lawrence Fishburne's. He was thirteen or fourteen when he did this movie. The always magnificent late Rosalind Cash plays his mother. The film makes a sharp comment about the conflicts people have with the very people who are supposed to be protecting them.

I think the label of blaxploitation for this film is quite unfair- it's heartfelt, various Black and White characters are shown as flawed rather than the "us vs. them" mentality of many racially charged films of that era- and you deeply care about what happens to everyone involved. Plus Moses Gunn is as fine an actor as ever set foot on the silver screen. Just thoroughly enjoyed it in spite of low budget feel and some clichéd moments. I even got choked up at times. Well worth seeing. Additionally, I was quite saddened to find that so many of the cast died relatively young. For a film from the mid 70s, there's an awful lot of actors in this movie no longer with us.

I'm not going to summarize the story of this movie; you can find that above.

Rather, I'll just leave my comments on the experience of watching it.

The ;movie is well acted throughout. And that can, at times, make it difficult to watch. When one of the characters is killed, it is difficult to watch his mother's at first unbelieving reaction to the tragedy. You feel something of her grief just in watching the contorsions of her face and body. It's not easy to watch.

Later, watching the police dept intimidate witnesses to avoid a wrongful homicide verdict is also difficult to watch, but in a different sense. You see how powerless the people in this poor neighborhood are to fight back against such administrative corruption. (I also suppose it doesn't make a lot of sense. I would imagine, though I don't know this as a fact, that even in 1975 police depts would have been insured against such expenses.)

It's refreshing that it is a Black lawyer who wins this suit, and not some Great White Savior.

But at the end, you have no assurance that the same thing won't happen again. And again. And again. The shooting of the young Black man was not directly an act of racism - one of the policemen who shot at him was Black himself, and they had been told the rapist they were pursuing was Black. His death is, rather, the result of sloppy procedure and very bad coincidence.

But the intimidation of the potential witnesses by police dept reps suggests that the people in this neighborhood and other poor ones like it have little access to real justice.

Seeing that this is one of the first, if not the first, Hollywood movies fully to address the issue of police brutality toward African Americans, a problem that remains unsolved, I am inclined to cut this film a whole lot of slack. I am willing to overlook the Lorraine Hansbury wannabe dialogue and over the top acting, surprising for such a distinguished cast. I will even forgive the bombastic, intrusive music score. Because, however crudely at times, director Joe Manduke conveys the feel of a community oppressed as well as the difficulty of and need to stand up to the oppressor. So that by the end of the film one is both angered and stirred. And not spuriously, either Give it a B minus.

PS...One exception to the general histrionics of the acting is a very young Laurence Fishburne whose testimony at the inquest is, by far, the film's best scene. That it is also the only one without music is not, in my view, coincidental.