This movie begins with a con-man by the name of "Reverend Deke O'Malley" (Calvin Lockhart) sponsoring a "Back to Africa" initiative and selling tickets to people in Harlem who are naive enough to trust him. However, his plans go awry when he attempts to fleece his partner who stages a heist and makes off with the $87,000 in revenue generated at Reverend O'Malley's benefit rally. This results in two hardened police detectives, "Grave Digger Jones" (Godfrey Cambridge) and "Coffin Ed Johnson" (Raymond St. Jacques) getting involved despite the obstacles put in their path by Reverend O'Malley, his girlfriend "Iris" (Judy Pace) and their own Chief of Police, "Captain Bryce" (John Anderson). Now, rather than disclose the rest of the movie and possibly ruining it for those who haven't seen it, I will just say that this was a pretty good "Blaxploitation" film. Although the story got a little complicated at first, all of the pieces of the puzzle seemed to fit by the end of the movie. And while I liked the performances of the aforementioned Godfrey Cambridge and Raymond St. Jacques, it was clearly Judy Pace who was the main attraction. In any case, while it may not be the best "Blaxploitation" film ever made it still wasn't too bad and I recommend it to those who enjoy movies of this sort.
Review of Cotton Comes to Harlem
