bch@mcnc.UUCP (Byron Howes) (12/18/84)
- - - mod.movies - - - - - - Volume 1, Issue 16 - - -
THE COTTON CLUB
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Francis Ford Coppola's career has had its ups and downs. The
biggest ups were the two GODFATHER films; the biggest down is probably
the more recent tone experiment ONE FROM THE HEART. Coppola films come
with big price tags and some win big at the boxoffice, but more
recently they have been losing big. Coppola needs a box office winner
so he is returning to a subject that has worked for him in the past.
He has made another lavish gangster film.
THE COTTON CLUB takes place in the late Twenties and early
Thirties when gangsters and celebrities would slum in Harlem. The
number one slumming spot was the Cotton Club, a posh night spot where
blacks entertained, where legends like Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington
were born, but where the audience was white only. THE COTTON CLUB is
the story of two pairs of brothers, the Irish Dwyers and the black
Williamses. The Dwyers get involved with the psychopathic hood Dutch
Schultz (played by James Remar) and the pugnacious Owney Madden (Bob
Hoskins), owner of the Cotton Club, racketeer, and self-appointed
peacemaker among the bootleggers.
THE COTTON CLUB is structured much like Ragtime with many
intertwined stories being developed at the same time. As much as this
film has a main character, it is Dixie Dwyer (Richard Gere), a cornet
player who saves Dutch Schultz's life and, with his brother, is sucked
into the world of bootleggers and numbers runners. The story also
follows Sandman Williams (Gregory Hines), who is chasing stardom and
one Lila Rose Oliver (Lonette McKee). Lila Rose wants to make it as a
star too, but her skin is light enough that she wants to make it as a
white star. The story for THE COTTON CLUB is by William Kennedy,
Coppola, and Mario Puzo. What makes the film most watchable is the
same sort of racketeer politics that Coppola and Puzo put into the
GODFATHER films. The "who is doing what to whom and why" and the
backdrop of the Twenties fascinates the viewer and make 127 minutes go
by quickly.
Though Gere plays the main character of a memorable film, his will
not be the most memorable part of the film. Somehow his character is
never developed to the point that we really care much about him. And
the authenticity of his story is destroyed by some miscalculated scenes
at the end that could have been from a Thirties musical. Curiously,
the film's most memorable scene is between Madden and his lumbering
bodyguard Frenchie (Fred Gwynne). These minor characters--and a third,
Sol Weinstein (Julien Beck)--do more to make the film with far less
screen time than any of the major characters. The musical numbers also
make the film work and give a Twenties feel to the story, but by the
end of the film we have seen just two or three two many of them.
So did returning to gangsters and period pieces pay off for
Coppola? THE COTTON CLUB is flawed, but it joins THE NATURAL and
AMADEUS as one of the best of the year. Watch for it at Oscar time.
(Evelyn C. Leeper for)
Mark R. Leeper
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