Black Rose Of Harlem

Georgia Freeman (Williams) is a singer in a Harlem nightclub that Italian mob boss Costanza (Joe Viterelli) wants to take over. Costanza visits the club with his henchmen, Johnny (Nick Cassavetes) and Joey (Lawrence Monoson). Georgia and Johnny make eyes at each other.

Club co-owner Fry Wisdom (Garrett Morris) refuses to pay protection money to Costanza, and Joey shoots him dead. In the ensuing gunfight, Johnny saves Costanza's life. In gratitude, Costanza makes Johnny his #2 man and introduces him to his precocious daughter, Alba (Maria Ford). That night, Alba sneaks into Johnny's room and tries to make love to him, but he fantasizes about Georgia.

The nightclub is reopened with the help of new co-owner Yancey (Richard Brooks), and Georgia is a hit with her nightly performances. Soon, she and Johnny are having a torrid affair. Cateye (Richard T. Jones), a musician who's in love with Georgia, warns her to stay away from Johnny, but she doesn't listen.

Johnny suggests to Costanza that they take over the club, but the club's co-owner, Turner (Tony Burton), turns down Johnny's offer. Costanza sends Joey and his goons to take the place by force. Johnny warns Yancey and Turner that Joey's coming, and they ambush him, making him strip and humiliating him. Joey, convinced that Johnny tipped them off, tells Costanza that he saw Johnny in Alba's room. Johnny admits it, and Costanza makes him propose to her.

Joey kills Yancey and Turner, and Costanza takes over the club. After Johnny leaves Alba at the altar, Joey tells Costanza about his secret secret affair with Georgia. They catch Johnny and Georgia together at the club. A gunfight breaks out, and Costanza and Johnny are shot. Before Johnny dies, Georgia tells him she's pregnant. Joey's about to shoot Georgia when Cateye comes up behind him and shoots him. The movie ends with Georgia boarding a bus alone.

BLACK ROSE OF HARLEM is Roger Corman's attempt to meld aspects of THE COTTON CLUB, THE GODFATHER trilogy, THE UNTOUCHABLES, and countless other gangster classics. Unfortunately, the film violates Corman's First Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Bore. Consisting mostly of long conversations in the darkened nightclub, it lacks excitement and atmosphere.

Always eager to recycle excerpts from his old productions, Corman reuses stock footage from 1979's THE LADY IN RED for virtually all of the exterior shots and action montages.

Williams gives a decent, low-key performance, and she has a nice singing voice. But the movie is padded with her many musical numbers, which are shot in a flat, static style. Viterelli is an old hand at playing grotesque Mafiosi, and he's perfectly cast as Costanza, but Monoson shamelessly hams it up as the hotheaded Joey.

As for Cassavetes, he's smarmy and totally unconvincing as a 1930s tough guy. In a string of bad, direct-to-video productions, he has consistently demonstrated that, despite wonderful genes (from father John and mother Gena Rowlands), he's simply not a good actor. (Nudity, sexual situations, graphic violence, extreme profanity.) leave a comment