Harlem Nights

Infobox_Film
name = Harlem Nights


caption = Promotional poster for "Harlem Nights"
imdb_id = 0097481
writer = Eddie Murphy
starring = Eddie Murphy
Richard Pryor
Redd Foxx
Danny Aiello
Michael Lerner
Della Reese
director = Eddie Murphy
producer = Mark Lipsky
Robert D. Wachs
music = Herbie Hancock
cinematography=Woody Omens
editing=Alan Balsam
George Bowers
distributor = Paramount Pictures
released = November 17, 1989 (USA)
runtime = 116 min.
country=USA
budget = $30,000,000 (USA)
gross=$60,864,870 (USA)
$95,900,000 (Worldwide)
language = English

"Harlem Nights" is a comedy-drama / mobster film starring Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor. This 1989 movie also featured Michael Lerner, Danny Aiello, Redd Foxx, Della Reese and Murphy's brother Charlie Murphy. Murphy also wrote and directed. Murphy was the executive producer and Mark Lipsky was the producer. Murphy had always wanted to direct and star in a period piece, and thus, this movie was made. The movie was a critical failure but a financial success.

Plot

In Harlem, New York, Sugar Ray (Richard Pryor) has a small-time dice game going in the back of his candy store. After nearly being killed by an angry man who lost to Ray, he's saved when an 8-year old errand boy shoots the man in the head. The orphan, who goes by the name 'Quick', becomes the 'good luck charm' for Ray and grows up with him. 20 years later, Sugar Ray and a grown-up Quick (Eddie Murphy) now run a highly successful club called "Club Sugar Ray" in 1930s Harlem. The club is a speakeasy, with a brothel in the back run by tough talking madam Vera (Della Reese).

Into the club walks Tommy Smalls (Thomas Mikal Ford), who works for the notorious gangster Bugsy Calhoun (Michael Lerner) at the Pitty Pat Club, and Calhoun's mistress, Miss Dominique LaRue (Jasmine Guy). Smalls and LaRue are 'visiting' the club to check it out and report back to Calhoun, who has received word that Club Sugar Ray is outgrossing him on a nightly basis. Ray tells Quick to check them out, but not to mess with Miss LaRue as she's Calhoun's mistress. Calhoun plans to muscle Ray and Quick out of the profits generated by their club. He sends corrupt police detective Phil Cantone (Danny Aiello) to check Ray out. He visits Ray at his home and initially asks if Ray is the owner of the club, which he denies (Ray's front for the club was that he owned a candy store for 30 years). The next night, Cantone shows up at the club, threatening to shut them down unless Calhoun gets a cut of their action or else.

Ray calls a meeting of all the club workers to formulate a plan. There was a big heavyweight championship fight taking place in a few days with Jack Johnson that was going to command a lot of money. The plan was for them to place a bet on Johnson to lose to make Calhoun think that they had talked the champ into throwing the fight, thereby fixing it. They also had a plan to rob all of Calhoun's booking houses (he owned all of them in the city) to generate even more revenue by hijacking the pick-up man they use every year. This part of the plan calls for Vera to use a girl that could turn him out. Vera replies, "I got a girl whose pussy is so good, if you threw it up in the air it would turn into sunshine."

Ray sends Quick to check out Tommy Smalls, and tells everyone else to be ready to move because they were not in a position to fight Calhoun. Quick visits Smalls' apartment, but finds that Smalls has been executed; it was discovered that Smalls was coming up short with the nightly receipts at the Pitty Pat Club. As he's leaving Smalls' apartment building, Smalls' brother (played by Arsenio Hall) sees him and goes to check on his brother. Earlier in the day, Quick had received an invitation to dinner from Dominique LaRue. The invitation turned out to be a recruiting pitch from Bugsy Calhoun to manage the Pitty Pat Club with Miss LaRue. Quick refuses the offer, but Calhoun doesn't give up so easily. He sends Miss LaRue to seduce Quick, even to go so far as to kill him. When her attempt to kill him fails, Quick turns the tables and kills her. To complicate matters even more, Small's brother has discovered that his brother is dead and wants revenge on Quick, since he was the last person seen leaving Smalls' apartment building. A chase and gunfight ensues. Quick tries to tell his pursuers that he had nothing to do with killing Tommy Smalls, but they don't believe him. In three effortless shots, Quick dispatches Tommy's brother and his assistants with ease and disappears into the night.

Quick arrives at Ray's house later to report on the night's happenings. He explains that he has killed Dominique LaRue, killed Smalls' people, and Bugsy Calhoun's attempt to recruit him. Ray tells Quick to calm down (Quick is furious that someone has been trying to kill him all night and claims that he's no punk - even goes so far as to say "It's not where you shoot, but who you shoot.") Ray explains that Quick needs to be patient, let the plan work, and to lie low (once Calhoun finds out that Quick has killed his mistress he's going to want revenge).

The following night, Cantone arrives at Club Sugar Ray to shut them down. Everyone is arrested and sent to jail. The next morning, Ray visits Club Sugar Ray, which has been gutted by a fire, one last time. He knows it's time to leave at this point, and he still plans to execute his plan. Later that morning, Ray walks into the police station and asks what the bail amount is to release everyone arrested; $7500 dollars was the cost. Upon hearing the amount, Ray flips a large sum of money to the desk seargeant and says "Gimme my receipt." Everyone is released and picked up in limos, much to the surprise of the arresting officers and the desk seargeant.

Meanwhile, Quick is lying low with Bennie and Vera as Calhoun's men are scouring the city looking for him. Ray asks if Quick had apologized to Vera for shooting her pinky toe off. (Earlier in the movie Quick had accused Vera and her 'girls' of coming up short, thereby accusing her of stealing. Vera challenged Quick to a fight, to which she was beating him until he pulled his gun and threatened to shoot her toe off. After making the threat (and with several witnesses present) Quick shoots Vera's pinky toe off, to which she responds "I'm gonna put what's left of my foot in his ass!!"). She forgives him, and they all set out to continue with their plan.

Vera's girl (Sunshine, played by Lela Rochon) had seduced Calhoun's pickup man, Richie Vinto. She convinced him that she also had a pickup to make and she was going to be stuck out in the cold with all her 'stuff'. Richie agrees to pick her up on the way as he's picking up the money from the booking houses.

As he's picking Sunshine up, Richie gets into an accident with a car driven by Bennie (who is myopic ala Mr. Magoo and wears very thick glasses) and Vera. Ray and Quick, disguised as policemen, arrive on the scene and attempt to arrest Richie. They tell him that he's riding around with the notorious heroin dealer known as Lady Heroin and they were going to take both of them in. Quick attempts to switch the bag that held Calhoun's money with the bag of 'stuff' that Sunshine had placed in the car, but before he can two white policemen arrive. Richie pulls one of them aside and explains that he's on a run for Bugsy Calhoun and they eventually let him go. Around the corner, Cantone had been following Richie in case someone tried anything.

In the meantime, the fight had already started. At first it seemed like it was going to be evenly matched, but that turned out to not be the case. At the Pitty Pat Club, two of Ray's men walk into the crowded club and begin shooting in the air, advising everyone to get out. Freddy lays a bomb and the two hastily exit the club and leave before it blows up. Calhoun finally realizes that the fight was not fixed as he originally thought, and receives word that his club has been firebombed. Quick and Ray arrive at an abandoned warehouse and go inside, followed closely by Cantone. Cantone attempts to catch Ray and Quick in something, but then realizes that he's been set up as one of Ray's men is pointing a gun at his head. The men seal Cantone in an old bank vault and warn him that there's enough air to last until the next day, give or take a couple of hours. (They also advise him to take sips of air instead of deep breaths because he may run out sooner if he does.)

Calhoun returns to his home, furious that his club has been firebombed and that he was tricked into betting against the champ. When Richie arrives to deliver Calhoun's money, he realizes that the bags had been switched, and he has to explain the incident with 'Lady Heroin'. Bugsy tastes one of the bags and notices that its powdered sugar, then realizes who has duped him. He then receives a visit from Vera, who tells them how she did not want to be mixed up in the whole idea of robbing him and tells Bugsy where to find Ray and Quick - "They at Ray's Mr. Calhoun but don't tell them I told you 'cause they done already shot off my pinky toe!!".

Bugsy and his men arrive at Ray's house and walk in, expecting the house to be full. When they find an empty house, Calhoun suspects a trap, but one of his men gets anxious and trips the bomb wired into the door. Bugsy and his men are killed. Later, near the waterfront, Ray and Quick are talking to the two men who were also disguised as policemen earlier that night. They had anticipated that Cantone would follow the money and set it up so that it looked like they were being reprimanded by two white officers. They paid the men for their service, then get into their car and head for parts unknown - alive to see what life outside Harlem has to offer them.

Cast

*Eddie Murphy ... Quick
*Richard Pryor ... Sugar Ray
*Redd Foxx ... Bennie Wilson
*Danny Aiello ... Phil Cantone
*Michael Lerner ... Bugsy Calhoune
*Della Reese ... Vera
*Berlinda Tolbert ... Annie
*Stan Shaw ... Jack Jenkins
*Jasmine Guy ... Dominique La Rue
*Vic Polizos ... Richie Vento
*Lela Rochon ... Sunshine
*David Marciano ... Tony
*Arsenio Hall ... Crying Man
*Thomas Mikal Ford ... Tommy Smalls
*Charlie Murphy ... Jimmy
*Desi Arnez Hines II ... Young Quick

Awards

Won

*10th Golden Raspberry Awards:
**Worst Screenplay (Eddie Murphy)

Nominated

*Academy Awards:
**Academy Award for Best Costume Design (Joe I. Tompkins)

*10th Golden Raspberry Awards
**Worst Director (Eddie Murphy)

Reception

The film was savaged by most critics (21% on rottentomatoes.com).

External links

*imdb title|id=0097481|title=Harlem Nights
*rotten-tomatoes|id=harlem_nights|title=Harlem Nights
* [http://film.virtual-history.com/film.php?filmid=266 Movie stills]