Black Caesar

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
A king of crime is born.

(00:03):
A mob boss who started in the streets, ready to do anything for a payoff.
No matter what it cost.
He became an overlord of the underworld with every trick in the book.
Fred Williamson, in the private war of an angry man,
whose hate was spelled out in the blood of his enemy,
his violence in the curses of his women, Black Caesar.

(00:29):
Every mob organization in town is out to get him.
We're not talking about actors. We mean a real monster.
I brought her back. She'll live and I'll get her another body.
I know they're gonna catch me, but don't let anyone see me like that. Please, Doctor! Help me!
Biologically speaking, it's a primary importance that man should want to mate.

(00:51):
Hey, that's right!
You don't get all your kicks from surfing, do you?
We want to be free to ride our machines without being hassled by the man.
And we want to get loaded.
You think you're gonna make a slave of the world?
I'll see you in Hell first!
The American International Podcast.
Are you ready?

(01:13):
Hello and welcome to the American International Podcast. I'm Cheryl Lightfoot.
And I'm Jeff Markin.
And this week we're breaking into organized crime at the top with Black Caesar from 1973.
Black Caesar was written, produced and directed by Larry Cohen for Largo Productions and released by American International Pictures.
Black Caesar stars Fred Williamson as Tommy Gibbs, Gloria Hendry as Helen, Art Lund as Captain McKinney,

(01:34):
D'Urville Martin as Reverend Rufus, Julius W. Harris as Mr. Gibbs,
Minnie Gentry as Mama Gibbs, Philip Roye as Joe Washington, William Wellman Jr. as Alfred Coleman,
James Dixon as “Irish" Bryant, Val Avery as Cardoza.
Also appearing our Patrick McAllister as Grossfield, Don Pedro Colly as Crawdaddy,
Myrna Hansen as Virginia Coleman, Omer Jeffrey as Young Tommy, Michael Jeffrey as Young Joe,

(01:59):
Allen W. Bailey as “Motor", Cecil Alonzo as “Sport", Francisco DeGracia as Cab Driver,
and Larry Lurin as Carlos.
Black Caesar opens with a date, September 5th, 1953.
A boy shining shoes on a busy street.
This is downtown New York City, looks like Harlem.
A man in a suit comes by and the boy convinces the man to stand still for his shoe shine.

(02:20):
He nervously looks around and so does the boy.
This man tells the boy to hurry.
The boy, Tommy, says that a good shine takes time.
Another man exits a building from across the street.
Tommy's customer sees this man and tries to leave, but Tommy grabs onto the man's leg, keeping him in place.
The new man pulls on a gun and guns down Tommy's customer.
Little Tommy grabs his shoe shine box and runs as James Brown sings down and out in New York City.

(02:43):
After a while, Tommy and the shooter meet in one of those mythical New York City alleys.
The shooter gives the boy some cash and the boy asks for a peek at that gun.
The two of them go up the fire scape stairs, but the next time we see Tommy, he's on a rooftop.
And from there he goes back down to the street.
Tommy has an envelope in his hand.
He runs over to a building and goes up the stairs to apartment 17 and knocks on the door
just as James Brown's song fades out.

(03:04):
The door is answered by Jeff McKinney, a racist cop on the take.
McKinney wants to know where the regular career is because they don't allow Tommy's kind in the building.
Tommy asks Tommy should know.
McKinney looks in the envelope and declares it's short.
He wants to know what Tommy did with the rest of the money.
Tommy insists he didn't take it, but McKinney is not the type to accept insubordination, particularly from someone he sees as a lesser being.

(03:25):
So McKinney throws Tommy down the stairs.
McKinney follows Tommy down the stairs and picks him up at the bottom.
McKinney says that he could kill Tommy with no consequences because he's a cop and Tommy's black.
McKinney starts beating Tommy with his night stick, breaking his leg.
Tommy tried to defend himself, but there's no way he was going to fight off this cop.
McKinney walks away, satisfied with the job will done.
And the next time we see Tommy, he's in the hospital.

(03:47):
Is there going to cast and open a sling?
A lot of people have signed that cast.
But at the moment, Tommy only has one visitor.
It's Joe Washington who appears to be a friend from the neighborhood.
Tommy asks Joe why he's the only one who has come to visit.
And where are the other kids?
The other kids don't want me around, says Joe.
But that's all right because Joe is the only one Tommy wants to see right now.
And Tommy lays out his plan for Joe.
Tommy says he's going away. And while he's away, he's going to learn a lot.

(04:09):
And he wants Joe to learn a lot too.
And then Tommy will see that Joe is taking care of.
Tommy wants Joe to finish high school.
Then to learn where to put money so that you have more money than you started.
Which is something I would like to learn too.
Wouldn't we all?
Then when the time has come for Tommy to start his business, they'll be ready.
Joe's planning to go to the community college of New York because it's free.
So he's on board with this plan.
Then Tommy tells Joe to fuck off before Joe starts crying.

(04:33):
Joe says he's not crying, but he fucks off anyway.
As he goes, Tommy commands Joe to get laid before they meet again.
It is now October 23rd 1965.
And a full grown Tommy Gibbs walks down the street in New York.
He's wearing his uniform of a suit in Hamburg hat.
He is fine to put it mildly.
But we don't spend too much time gazing upon him.
We're inside a barbershop where a white man is being shaved by a black barber.

(04:56):
The white man is of course being offensive, which is not terribly smart
when there's a man with a blade at your throat.
This is Mr. Grossfield and as we'll find out, he really isn't terribly smart.
He's going on about how black people love to lose money and then he should build a casino in the desert just for them.
I would love to be on the jury for this barber if he finally snapped and slit this man's throat.
Anyway, we see Tommy come in.

(05:18):
Sam the barber says that he'll be right with Tommy.
But Tommy tells Sam to take his time and make Mr. Grossfield look good for his family.
Tommy takes a seat directly in front of Grossfield.
And when Tommy insinuates that he has some business with Grossfield,
Grossfield tries to call Tommy's bluff saying Tommy doesn't have a gun.
Tommy reaches under his coat to prove Grossfield wrong.
The nervous barber begins shaking and nicking Grossfield as he shaves him.
Tommy tells Sam the barber to try to be more careful.

(05:41):
Tommy had planned on giving it to him where it didn't show and Sam was marking him all up.
Grossfield says that he doesn't know who sent Tommy.
But as if they can work something out.
No one sent me, he says Tommy.
I'm just trying to break into the business at the top.
Grossfield asks for a chance to get his gun and make it a fair fight.
Tommy says that he's just as nervous as he is.
Meaning either Grossfield or Sam.

(06:02):
But whoever he's talking to, he's saying that this is a first for both of them.
He's never killed anyone before.
Grossfield tells Tommy that the organization would never allow this.
But Tommy tells him that there's a contract on him put out by his old friend Cardoso.
And Tommy has taken it upon himself to fulfill the contract.
Grossfield grabs the barber's razor and jumps up, but Tommy shoots him dead.
Grossfield falls back into the barber chair.
Tommy quips that Sammy did a sloppy job on the shave and there's no way Tommy is going to let Sam ever shave him.

(06:27):
Then he picks up the razor and slices off Grossfield's left ear.
And now we're an Italian restaurant where Cardoza can only be him is eating spaghetti.
And he basically has a room to himself.
Tommy walks in holding an napkin.
He strides over to Cardoza's table and shakes the content of the napkin onto Cardoza's plate.
And it's a discolored right ear.
That's either a goof or we just didn't see him take off both ears.

(06:49):
I thought your sauce could use a little more meat.
He says after Cardoza's initial shock, Jesus Christ.
He tells Tommy that it was only open professionals.
Don't I qualify? Yes, Tommy.
Tommy says he spent eight years in some of their finest institutions.
And he says this was a clean job, but Cardoza sputters clean in the middle of the afternoon with witnesses.
But Tommy says he did it that way on purpose because everyone knows that Cardoza doesn't employ black people.

(07:14):
Cardoza invites him to sit down and order.
A waiter comes over and speaking perfect Italian restaurant menu.
Tommy orders a rigatoni plate for himself and a replacement spaghetti for Cardoza.
Cardoza is impressed that Tommy can speak Italian.
And Tommy explains that one of his cellmates was Sicilian.
Cardoza agrees to pay Tommy $200 for the job.
Tommy asks him when did the price go down?
Since when do black people make as much as whites?

(07:35):
Counters Cardoza?
Tommy tells Cardoza he should reconsider.
He may want to use Tommy again.
But Cardoza says no.
He never uses the same guy twice in the same city.
It's too easy for them to be identified.
But Tommy says he's got a bill in disguise.
No one notices anything about him other than he's black.
They don't even notice his bad leg.
I didn't notice it either.
Not once in this entire movie.
Cardoza also says the other families will never allow him to hire Tommy.

(07:58):
But Tommy doesn't want a job.
What he wants is one full block to call his own.
127th Street in Edgecomb.
We don't know if that's North or South, but that is Harlem.
Cardoza doesn't understand what Tommy wants with this shitty block.
But Tommy will make it work.
Cardoza again warns Tommy about the precarious living situation.
But Tommy is unfazed.
He's going to put in the work.
And Cardoza toasts him.

(08:19):
Salute.
Black Caesar continues with the montage as Tommy and his men, including a now grown-up
Joe, patrol their neighborhood while the song Boss by James Brown has played.
They make handshake deals.
Tommy shoots a Tommy gun in a black box.

(08:40):
People are taken down and Tommy is spending time with women.
And he looks good doing that.
Now we're going to meet another friend of Tommy's.
This is Reverend Rufus.
Rufus, Tommy and Joe are meeting in the office of lawyer Alfred Coleman.
Rufus is explaining the religious record he's running.
He shakes people down, but all the payments go into the books as religious offerings.
Then they get to use the tax-free profits to buy legit businesses.

(09:03):
So the market's apartment houses, etc.
Joe jumps in to say that the real goal here is to give the black man a fair shake.
Hollins in attorney who, as Tommy understands, it has connections at City Hall, including GUSIK,
a bag man for certain public servants.
GUSIK had detailed ledgers of his legal activities with names of the well-connected, going back to the 50s.
Tommy saw them once when he was a kid, and he knows that GUSIK keeps them in a safe deposit box.

(09:28):
But when he gets audited, those ledgers come out.
Tommy plans to acquire these ledgers and take over those accounts.
And then he'd like Coleman to represent his business interests.
Coleman expresses interest, but he needs those ledgers to fully commit to the project.
The audit of those ledgers is being performed in the back of a bar to the strains of some James Brown funk.
Tommy is led in through the back door by Helen.

(09:51):
She is happy to see him, but this is a personal call for Tommy.
He asked her to pick him up with a song or two, but she boxed.
She's tired after a long day of being groped and propositioned by the pigs who come in there.
But Tommy demands a song.
Anything loud is okay.
Helen sits down with the keyboard and pounds out some keys, hitting a discordant note.
Tommy pulls a gun and she asks what he's gonna do.
He pushes her face away from him and tells her to play and she does.

(10:13):
He doesn't care what she plays just to make it loud.
And no matter what to keep playing.
She starts playing and singing big daddy.
Then Tommy goes into the back room, shoots the auditor and the two other men looking over his shoulder.
No one stops playing and Tommy takes those ledgers.
Tommy returns to Helen and says it's time to go home now.
No more working for tips for her.
He has those ledgers now and that means political power and financial success.

(10:36):
She's slowly, almost unwillingly follows the amount of the club.
And now Tommy Joe and Crod Daddy, this is one of Tommy's thugs,
are meeting with Opera Coleman in Coleman's office.
Joe says that instead of just shaking down the white landlords,
they're going to go into business with them and improve the tenets living situation.
This will earn them trust within the black community.
Tommy gives the ledgers to Coleman as they prepare to leave and Coleman requests that they use the freight elevator when they go.

(11:01):
Joe and Crod Daddy stand to leave, but first it's present time.
Tommy gives each of his men a wrap box, then throws Coleman a present,
something from Tiffany's for his wife.
Yes, Tommy, if you should lock the ledgers away,
but Tommy wants them to be kept out where he can see them.
And he is McKinney who has been invited into joining them.
Of course, McKinney and Tommy recognize each other.
And Coleman would like for them to forget about past differences.

(11:23):
Coleman hands McKinney an investment portfolio that was prepared for him by Joe.
It's all blue chiff stuff, whatever that means.
I don't know much about investing, but it stocks bonds and securities.
McKinney examines the paperwork and then sees those infamous ledgers on the desk.
Tommy reminds McKinney of what's inside.
And though McKinney threatens Tommy with the rest, Coleman reminds McKinney of this very above board investment in his future that he's been provided and that they'll be adding to it.

(11:48):
And it's all for the low, low effort price of looking the other way when Tommy's organization does their business.
McKinney does not say no, but he does come close enough to Tommy to make him flinch a little.
Can he says that he'll be waiting for Tommy's inevitable downfall, but Tommy just politely wishes McKinney well.
McKinney gives a menacing chuckle and then leaves and Coleman tells Tommy that there's no point in tagging the captain.

(12:09):
He's going to be the police commissioner soon enough.
Tommy thinks this is good.
He wants McKinney to be nice and fat when he kills him.
Tommy tells Coleman to go ahead and lock up the ledgers now and then says you'd like to be invited over to Coleman's place to meet the family.
All right, goops Coleman.
So Tommy has decided it's time to move on up to a deluxe apartment on the east side.
So while paying a visit to Alfred Coleman and his wife Virginia, he informs them that he will be buying their apartment.

(12:32):
Tommy hands Coleman a check and Coleman tells him they don't need money thanks to Tommy in their arrangement.
Tommy tells him that that check is to cover everything the furniture, the clothes and the closet and the maid.
Good help is hard to find these days.
Virginia is good to go, but Coleman wants to know why does Tommy want all of his belongings.
And Tommy explains that everything he's ever gotten had been handed down to him from Coleman.
Everything that had been worn out got dirty out grew Tommy even ate his leftovers.

(12:57):
Coleman demands to know who Tommy is, but Virginia comes back.
She's ready to leave.
She thinks they should go before Coleman gets hurt.
Coleman on his way out the door looks back and ask if their partnership is still on.
Tommy says sure if he wants it and that he trusts Coleman to represent Tommy's interest.
Virginia hopes that Tommy enjoys the mattress.
It's very hard.
She says sort of lustfully or lustfully.

(13:19):
I can't tell.
Now we get a brief montage of Tommy throwing all of Virginia's fur coats out the window.
I do want to mention that he's not wearing a shirt in this scene.
He's probably trying on the fur coats.
They're finding out they're too small and then throwing them out.
The night turns today and Abby the maid arrives to wake the sleeper in the bed.
She thinks it's Coleman of course and she petters on about how old Abby is going to take good care of him.

(13:40):
She even has his tomato juice ready, but as she's bustling about,
Tommy throws off the sheet and draws, "You sure treats me good? Abby is a guest."
How did Tommy get in there? Tommy doesn't answer. He just starts ordering breakfast.
Abby calls him an ungrateful bum and says she won't be working for him.
And she quits. Tommy tells her she can't quit. She doesn't work there.
He's giving all this to her. In case you haven't figured out now, Abby is Tommy's mother.

(14:04):
Abby says she can't live there. They'll hang her from the terrace, not even Jewish folk are allowed to live there.
But Tommy tells her not to worry. Nobody's going to give any trouble to Tommy Gibbs's mama.
He tells her to sit down, which she does, but she looks very lost.
Tommy tells her that she can sleep till noon now and press the buzzer for breakfast and bed.
He'll hire a couple of white maids for her and a snooty chauffeur to take her to sex.
Abby says that she wouldn't know what to say to those people.

(14:27):
She's a maid and she's always been a maid, but Tommy could never see that.
And she looks really sad.
And now it's party time. People are dancing to make it good to yourself by James Brown.
This is Tommy and a bunch of other people and they soon be having a good time,
but it does nothing to advance the plot whatsoever.
Also, his mom isn't there, so she may have declined that offer. In fact, I'm sure she did.

(14:48):
She does the next time we see her, she's sobbing her eyes out with Reverend Rufus.
She's weeping and keening and kneeling by him.
And Rufus looks kind of embarrassed by this display.
He says, "Mama, does Tommy know where you are?" She says, "Yes, but she wants Rufus to pray for Tommy.
Rufus agrees, but he does it like an evangelical preacher by asking everyone else if they believe that he can heal them.
Then we rejoin Tommy who is seated at a booth in a restaurant with an open ceiling.

(15:13):
Kardoza comes in to join him. Tommy has Kardoza slide into the booth and then Tommy snuggles up right next to him.
And then once again, Kardoza is taken aback by Tommy's use of the Italian language.
Kardoza says that he hired those goons from Philadelphia and Detroit that Tommy recommended,
and that they work so well and cheaply.
They joke a little bit about Lincoln maybe not bringing the slaves.
And Kardoza says Lincoln was kind of dumb for keeping his back to the door.

(15:37):
Tommy tells Kardoza that in business, the CEOs and bosses eventually get kicked upstairs and out of the day-to-day operations.
And that's what's happening here.
As they continue the conversation, Tommy's men are sneaking around the rooftop and then the men drop from the ceiling, gun shooting.
They take out Kardoza's bodyguard. Tommy tells Kardoza that he's taking over, but he's going to keep Kardoza around as a figurehead.
That way the other gains won't bother them because as far as they're concerned, they're still a white man in charge.

(16:01):
Tommy reaches into his jacket and Kardoza begs him not to do it.
Tommy tells him to relax and he just brought Kardoza a gift. It's in grade from Tiffany's.
That's his go-to gift shop. Yes, Kardoza to open the gift in Kardoza does.
He starts crying as he looks at a picture frame. Kardoza says, "You can do this to me."
Tommy says that Kardoza is still going to get his weekly cut, but it's going to be less because he's not black.

(16:22):
Kardoza explodes. Just wait till his brothers on the west coast hear about this.
Tommy's a dead man. Tommy muses the loud that California is really nice this time of year, isn't it?
He and his men laugh and then we dissolve to Larry Cohen's house.
A nice dinner party in session in the backyard of a west coast mob boss.
Several Tommy's men sneak over fences and gun down everyone in attendance as well as the turkey.

(16:44):
They detonate the turkey.
Then they ruin the pool's pH by filling it full of dead Mafiosa.
Now we're back in New York and McKinney's and still fully decorated from a recent Christmas party.
Tommy, who had just been picked up at JFK from Mexico City where he was in jail on a traffic violation, is escorted into see him.

(17:07):
McKinney tells Tommy that was a botched job he pulled in California.
All three of the Kardoza brothers were killed.
When Tommy says he's now running Kardoza's territory and as a bonus the South Bronx, McKinney tells him he's dreaming.
The city kid would never let him in.
Tommy cooly says everyone is a liberal these days, but McKinney says Tommy will be dead by the end of the week.
Tommy picks up a noise baker left over from the party and blows it in McKinney's face.

(17:29):
Then Alfred Coleman and a few others joined them.
Tommy convinces them that he's the one best position to control Harlem.
They aren't happy to hear this, but Tommy promises not to disturb their turf.
The unions, the docs, narcotics, and now in a scene I wish I didn't have to tell you about Tommy's back home.
He's in bed with Helen.
He wants some.
She's got a lot on her mind though, and a lot of it's about Tommy and his state of mind and his apparent dependency on substances.

(17:53):
He tells her she doesn't have to be afraid of him.
Everyone else does, but she doesn't.
She tells him please she just needs more time, but Tommy isn't going to give her time.
Now he's going to give her something to be afraid about.
Then he rapes her and this sucks because it's very graphic and we have to watch pretty much all of it.
It seems like he treats McKinney better than he treats his own girlfriend, wife, not sure.

(18:14):
We're back with Brepper and Rufus. He's on the street preaching again.
When a man comes to him asking to see Tommy, this man is named Gibbs too and he's Tommy's father.
Rufus digest this.
Then we cut to all three men in the car.
Tommy, Rufus and Mr. Gibbs.
Tommy's dad sits next to him in the middle seat of the limo.
Mr. Gibbs says that he was nearby on business, so he thought it would be stupid not to take advantage of the situation.

(18:35):
Tommy asks if he'd like to go up and see mom.
Mr. Gibbs says nah, he and his mother never really got along.
Then Tommy decides to show his father his fan base.
So we steps out of the car where an assembler crown is chanting we won Tommy, and they don't stop even when he's standing right in front of them.
Still in the car, Rufus tells Mr. Gibbs he should go back wherever he came from.
Gibbs says maybe he'd expect to hear that from Tommy, but what's Rufus' beef with him?

(18:59):
Rufus just tells him to listen.
Tommy gets back in the car and the next thing we see is the limo, driving out to some deserted area.
They park at a condemned building and walk up to it.
This is where Tommy grew up.
Poor because his father never sent his mother any money.
Tommy asks his father if it ever occurred to him that he's been waiting 25 years for the opportunity to kill him.
He tries to explain. He was the depression. He was only 20.

(19:20):
But Tommy isn't moved. He pulls on his gun and points it at his father and threatens to kill him.
Mr. Gibbs tries to explain. He and Tommy's mother were never legally wet.
He couldn't send money. Doesn't really make sense to me. But Tommy relents and lets him go without murdering him.
As Gibbs leaves, Rufus asks Tommy, what is he going to do now? Kill his mama?
Now we're back at Tommy's place and Helen walks into Tommy's office.

(19:41):
Tommy's on the phone threatening some of his people.
He doesn't want any pale faces in his territory. Helen's not impressed by the show of bureaucratic force.
She turns to go but Tommy stops her. He's got a present for her now.
It's in a box from Bergdorf Goodman and it's something for her trip to California.
He answers the box and she throws it on the floor and leaves.
Tommy feels really unappreciated.
Now we're at a nightclub called the Latin Quarter where Tommy and Joe are watching Helen perform.

(20:05):
Joe suggests they could take some of the money and set up youth centers to give back to the community.
And Tommy just gives Joe a pitiful look. Instead, Tommy plans to bring in some muscle from Detroit and Philly to strengthen his army.
And he wants Joe to take Helen to California because things are going to get messy around here.
He wants Joe to set her up at the house in Beverly Hills and recording business.
If her record's still in self, he wants Joe to buy them himself.

(20:27):
And Tommy will be out to see them when he can.
But first we have to go to a funeral.
Mama's dead says the song in the background and in this case it's very apropos.
Tommy and Rufus are burying Tommy's mom. Tommy says that he never once made his mother happy.
Rufus is inspired to pray sincerely for once and kneels down by the graveside.
This prayer is not for an audience, it's just for him.

(20:49):
Tommy walks away outside the cemetery where he bumps into his father.
Who's also there to pay his respects.
They had a surprise that there's no one else there but Tommy and Rufus.
Not even Tommy's woman. They weren't invited, snaps Tommy.
This father refuses to take the hint.
He's paying his respects with her without his son, say so.
He was his wife after all, although in the last scene said that she wasn't.
Tommy softens and asks his dad if he needs anything like a place to stay.

(21:12):
But Mr. Gibbs doesn't want to stay with his son.
He travels a lot. Tommy nods and walks off.
Tommy returns home to find Virginia Coleman waiting for him.
She's just lounging around on his sofa.
He asks what she's doing there and she says she missed her old bed.
And she thought he might like having her there.
But Tommy does not like this at all.
As she's being thrown out, Virginia asks him if he's thought about what Helen is doing out in California with his friend.

(21:34):
And she wants her clothes back.
Well, she doesn't get him.
Tommy arrives at Helen's California pad.
Or, imagine, Joe and Helen walk out from their bedroom wearing night clothes.
Well, Helen's in a nightcone and Joe's in a very short road.
Tommy quietly demands to know how long that they've been betraying him.
Helen starts to say that it's not like that.
But by this point, Tommy has already run up the stairs and thrown Joe down, said stairs.

(21:56):
Then he confronts Helen.
Tommy grouses that Helen betrayed him with the one person he wouldn't kill.
But then threatens to kill him anyway.
Joe gets roughed off a bit and Helen gets beat up herself.
A week has lost.
Helen wails and Joe lashes out verbally at Tommy.
Tommy is angry for losing face.
But after a little more violence departs, leaving Joe and Helen to comfort each other.
She says she hates him now, even more than before.

(22:19):
And now, or at some point in the near future, there is a time jump.
I'm not sure exactly when this occurs.
The timeline in this movie is impossible to follow.
It just don't give us any cues.
We are with Coleman and McKinney and Irish Bryant, who is another dirty cop, and they're playing billiards in a black box.
They're discussing how Tommy has been losing his charm.
They can't touch him as long as he has possession of those ledgers.

(22:42):
And they know that the safe deposit key is with Tommy at all times.
But they can take out Tommy's men as long as Tommy doesn't know who's behind it.
And that's where Irish Bryant comes in.
And now we get a body yard murder montage.
One by one, at least three of Tommy's goons are dispatched.
On the street, in a restaurant, and on the stoop of a building is Tommy stands next to the guy.
The last one occurs from a passing by handsome cab that's just going too fast for a pursuit.

(23:07):
I don't think so. I think even I could have caught it.
Next we see McKinney and Coleman are paying a visit to Helen.
She and Joe have had returned to New York without Tommy's financial assistance.
And they're now living in a small apartment with two children, a toddler and a newborn.
This is our only cue that some amount of time has passed and we can roughly judge it to be two.
And I have years McKinney asks about their association with Tommy.

(23:29):
Helen tells them Joe doesn't work for Tommy anymore.
McKinney tells her they have enough on Joe to put him behind bars for a long time.
Only it's Tommy that they want and she can help.
He tells Helen that Tommy hasn't taken up with a woman since he left her in Joe that night.
And so he'd be very happy to see her.
Although while he's telling her this, he's holding her toddler in a very threatening manner.
Helen doesn't want to hurt him.
And I think she's talking about Tommy and not Joe and refuses.

(23:52):
But McKinney questions her loyalty to the jerk who left them jobless.
Helen can't work as a senior and Joe can't get work either.
And didn't she just have another baby?
Helen manages to retrieve her little boy and ask the ledger again, huh?
That's how we met.
I thought they knew each other.
She says that he used her to get the ledgers and Helen says that this time she's going to be the one doing the using.

(24:13):
McKinney goes into the baby's room.
When Helen tries to follow, Coleman stops her.
McKinney says that he just wants to remind Helen to not make any mistakes.
Tommy is sitting alone in his apartment when he hears someone enter.
He picks up his gun.
Who's there? He calls out.
It's Helen.
She says nothing and he says, hello, Helen.
And then the sex has had this time without force, but probably still as unappreciated by Helen.

(24:36):
But at least this time she's the instigator.
Yeah, it's not exactly consensual.
So about 45 seconds later, Tommy is asleep and Helen slides his keys across the table and palms them.
Tommy wakes up and asks what she's doing.
She wishes for her watch and replaces the key ring.
As she dresses, she explains that Joe is going to miss her and she'll see Tommy on Monday.
Now we're at Coleman's office and he calls Commissioner McKinney.

(24:58):
I guess he got that promotion.
He reports that he has the ledgers that key plus $5,000 bribe to the intent was all it took to get in the box,
which as a bonus had $50,000 cash in there.
And somehow he knows that Tommy is going to pick up a gift for Helen at where else Tiffany's at 1 p.m. tomorrow.
So the next day Tommy exits Tiffany with said gift in his hand.
His car is there waiting for him though.

(25:20):
One of Tommy's men tells him that he must have gone off looking for a place to park.
But Tommy can't stand around waiting.
It's dangerous to stand around in these New York streets when you're a man in his position.
So he starts off.
He drops the gift and bends down to retrieve it.
And then Tommy passes by Irish Bryant in his police uniform.
As Tommy crosses the street, a man grabs him and Bryant shoots Tommy.
Tommy stumbles around and New Yorkers stare with concern.

(25:43):
Now we're with McKinney who gets the call.
Tommy was not fatally shot.
McKinney says don't worry if that police ambulance picks him up.
They'll finish him off there.
And we see the ambulance arriving, but Tommy is rallied in his honest feet looking for a cab.
He gets in a cab as Irish and the other guy who helped corral Tommy watch.
Then they jump in their car to pursue the cab.
The cabbie pulls out but he can't go too far because a garbage truck is in the way.

(26:06):
Tommy pulls on a $500 bill and hands it to the cabbie, telling him to drive up on the sidewalk.
The cabbie obliges, honking his horn to warn the pedestrians.
When they get back onto the street, they're stuck at a red light.
The car containing Bryant and the other man pulls up behind the cab.
Tommy lays down in the seat and tells the cabbie to run the light as the two men jump from the car and run toward the cab.
Bryant jumps on to the back of the cab and shoots inside.

(26:28):
Tommy tucks and rolls out of the cab and once again is on the street.
And so is Irish looking for him.
But Tommy finds him first and tries to get him with his necktie.
Actually, he just strangles him, leaving his body on a sidewalk bench and putting a newspaper over his face.
Then Tommy goes to see Rufus.
Rufus is in the process of saving a young female sinner.
But he has to excuse her to take care of Tommy.
Tommy wants to get the slug on of his chest but all Rufus can offer his prayer.

(26:51):
Tommy just looks at him with disbelief.
He tells Rufus they has $50,000 cash in the vault and Rufus tells him that it's Jesus' money now.
So Tommy slugs Rufus and leaves.
Rufus continues to pray.
I think the prayer was designed to drive Tommy away because he didn't want to help.
In Helen and Joe's apartment, he takes a call from Tommy.
Tommy needs to talk to Joe.
McKinney is making his move and he needs Joe and those books.

(27:14):
Cole man is sitting out his desk with a bullet in his head.
McKinney is there and he pours himself a drink.
Joe dresses to go out telling Helen that he has to save Tommy.
Helen tells him that no one can save Tommy but refuses to elaborate.
And Joe asks what's that supposed to mean.
Joe says he's got to go and leaves.
And Helen wails she knows that this is going to be bad but she didn't have to stop it.

(27:35):
So Joe goes to Coleman's office building.
He pushes the button to the elevator only to be met with McKinney and his gun.
McKinney tells Joe to push the 20th floor.
McKinney snarks that the great brain showed up after all.
Joe says he's only come to talk business.
If McKinney isn't happy with his cut they can read negotiate.
But McKinney doesn't want to negotiate.
He's going after the whole pie and he tells Joe Helen help set Tommy up and she didn't mind doing it.

(27:57):
I think he lets him know that Helen was unfaithful.
Joe throws up his hand to strike at McKinney and McKinney shoots Joe in the head.
Tommy's still bleeding stumbles into the building.
He pushes the elevator button and gets off on the 20th floor.
He steps into a library where he has a gun stashed behind some books.
Tommy sees that Coleman is sitting dead at his desk.
McKinney's there.
He's planning to frame Tommy for the side guest but first he brought him a treat.

(28:20):
McKinney wonders how many people listed in this ledger were paid off by Tommy.
Tommy tells him to shut up and McKinney hits him in his wound.
Tommy goes down.
Then McKinney shows off his present a shoe shine box meant to humiliate him.
But he also wants a mirror finish on his shoes.
Tommy begrudgingly complies because McKinney's gun is pressed against his temple.
Shines his shoes for as long as he can.
You missed your calling you know that says McKinney.

(28:42):
And Tommy slaps the gun out of McKinney's hand and punches him in the groin.
Then he picks up the shoe shine box and beats McKinney over the head with it.
Tommy picks up the gun and points it at McKinney.
Do it, Shouts McKinney.
Tommy smashes the gun into McKinney's skull.
Then he gets the shoe polish and rubs it all over McKinney's face,
ordering him to sing nanny as Tommy beats him in the chest with the pistol.
Much like Tommy was beaten by McKinney back in 53 and were shown clips of that

(29:06):
so that we make the parallel.
When McKinney is finally silent, Tommy stumbles to the desk and grabs the ledgers.
And then he stings his stumbling out to the elevator where Joe's body is still laying.
Tommy says that he should have taken better care of Joe and then goes outside
and you see him days of Lee walking around the promenade.
James Brown sings into sunrise.
Tommy walks all night.
We see the sunrise and then we see Tommy at his old building.

(29:29):
Tommy is barely able to stand.
And James Brown is singing "Home."
Then we cut to a shot of the New York City skyline where the date August 20th, 1972 comes up.
And then the credits roll and that's the end.
Welcome back to the American International Podcast where we're talking about Black Caesar from 1973.

(29:52):
The script for Black Caesar was originally commissioned by Sammy Davis Jr.
According to Larry Cohen, in an interview published on camera in the Sun.com,
Davis wanted to do a picture in which he was the star instead of being a flunky to Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin.
So I suggested they do a gangster movie like Little Caesar.
The scene was a little guy and so was Jimmy Cagney and so was Ed W. G. Robinson.

(30:14):
And I thought he could play a little hoodlum working his way up in the Harlem underworld.
Cohen said that Sammy Davis Jr.'s people liked the idea and commissioned Cohen to write the treatment for $10,000.
But when Cohen went to deliver the treatment, there was no money.
Davis had been in trouble with the IRS and he had nothing to give.
Cohen then ran into Sam Arkov of AIP who was at the time looking for an action movie with a black star.

(30:35):
Cohen ran to his car, grabbed the treatment and showed it to Arkov.
And according to Cohen, they had to deal that afternoon.
Black Caesar's budget was around $300,000.
Most of the movie was shot in New York City with some interior shot in Los Angeles, including scenes at Cohen's home.
And some New York interiors at his mother's apartment using his mother's own first in the scene where Tommy tosses them over the balcony.

(30:56):
Fred Williamson, who had a nodding acquaintance with Larry Cohen, said of him that,
quote, "having met him socially," he said of me, "Wow, this is the guy."
But then he had to convince me to do it because I wasn't sure I wanted to be in this kind of movie until I came up with my idea of Caesar from Ed W. G. Robinson.
And knew how I was going to play the role.
I wasn't depending on Larry Cohen's script to carry me through because I knew he didn't understand black motivation.

(31:20):
We had this discussion saying, "I'll do what I feel is right and I will discuss it with you.
And if I don't think something is right, I'll discuss it with you and I won't do it. It's that simple."
Williamson said in an interview after the film's release that he did very well in the scene where he spoke Italian.
They didn't know I was going to do it and I really freaked him out.
I said, "I got a burlitz tape and when they said, 'Roll it, I freaked him out. I freaked me out, too.'"

(31:44):
Gloria Hendrie said in an interview that she was cast because she was willing to do the nudity they were all required.
nudity was no problem for her because she had posed for playboy when she was a model before becoming an actress.
Cohen did some creative casting while shooting in New York.
Cohen said in that same interview that when he filmed in Harlem, the local gangsters threatened to disrupt the shoot unless they were paid off.
He offered them small roles in the film instead.

(32:06):
"These guys were great," he said. "Anything we wanted, anything we needed to get, they got for me."
"We kind of owned Harlem after that."
And then when the picture finally opened, I put them in the poster, too, so that the advertisements in the paper had these guys in it.
And opening day at the Sinorama Theatre on Broadway, these gangsters were down there in front of the theatre, signing autographs.
Cohen said in the audio commentary he recorded for the "Blue A" release of Black Caesar, that James Brown, who wrote several songs for the soundtrack,

(32:32):
delivered tracks that were much longer than what Cohen had requested, forcing him to edit them to fit the scenes they were written for.
When Brown did the same thing for Black Caesar's sequel, A.I.P refused to use the music.
The ending sequences, during which the wooded Tommy runs from the Tiffany's store in Manhattan through the city and back to the Harlem Tenement where he grew up,
were photographed by James Singerelley, while Fenton Hamilton was the director of photography for the rest of the picture.

(32:55):
Singerelley later went on to produce Saturday Night Fever.
The original cut of the film ended with Tommy Gibbs being beaten, robbed, and killed by a Black street gang.
And that was only seen at a test screening in Los Angeles.
The audience was unhappy with the main character dying at the end, something that A.I.P had warned Cohen not to do, so this scene was removed for general release.
For the New York premiere, Cohen said that he went to the New York theatres to cut the scene from the film on the day it opened to the public,

(33:19):
and then he sent that cut film to Los Angeles, so their prints conformed with the New York version, and all prints after that as well.
The death scene appeared only in European releases of the film until it was restored for home video release, and is not generally accepted as the official ending of the film.
Black Caesar was released on February 7, 1973, but in December of 1972, A.I.P. was apparently subject to a protest against Black's quotation films, allegedly carried out by Black militants.

(33:46):
Prior to this incident, Arcov had met with leaders of some Black organizations, some of whom went and script approval for upcoming A.I.P. films with Black casts,
a suggestion Arcov's shot down immediately. After that meeting, someone fire bombed a car in the parking lot outside their Los Angeles offices, but this did not stop the film from being released on schedule.
Arcov said in an interview in Jack Zinks, indicated column in December of 1972, but Blacks want to be censored as well as filmmakers.

(34:11):
They're upset the current crop of films isn't projecting the proper image, but that's what's selling now, and films are made to be sold.
We can't force a style or custom on an audience that isn't receptive.
In an interview with Francis Taylor, published two days later, Arcov said, with the recent boom in Black films we are seeing a renewed interest in audience pleasing genres as the private I.M.E. drama, the Western and the horror film.

(34:33):
I'm happy they are opening up the film industry for talented Black artists and craftsmen.
Fred Williamson said in an interview with Perry Stewart in a syndicated column that criticism of these films came from the Black bourgeois, and that quote, "If they don't like certain movies, they should turn loose some of the bread they've gotten produced their own."
Williamson was at that time in New York to promote Black Seasers premiere.

(34:54):
Williamson, who had a rough childhood growing up on Chicago Southside, also said in an interview with columnist Dan Lewis, published February 25th 1973, that "everything is exploitation. What difference does color make?
Every time I make a movie, I'm being an actor, not black or white, and I don't understand all those complaints about the Black Superman stuff either.
How come there's not so much talk about Lancaster or Crick Delas or guys like that? They dodged so many bullets."

(35:20):
OX Office Magazine advised theater owners to play up the James Brown score, and available on Polly Dore Records, and to use stills from Little Seasers to promote the new film with a reminder that it was not a remake.
The A.I.P.'s press books suggested having local police come show off the various firearms used in the movie, are also pointing out the dangers they posed.
They also recommended a cross-promotion with a local hammer-dasher holding a contest allowing someone to win a Tommy Gibbs-style wardrobe.

(35:45):
A Fred Williamson look-alike contest was another idea they promoted.
In November of 1974 and May of 1975, box office reported that Cohen was packaging Black Seasers and its sequel, Hell Up in Harlem, as a continuous three-hour film entitled "Godfather of Harlem."
With Cohen staking some of his own money to provide new posters and a new campaign, the first engagements were due to begin in Chicago in May 1975 with a massive nationwide saturation booking to follow.

(36:09):
Taglans for Black Seasers include, Hail Seaser, Godfather of Harlem.
He bought them, he used them, to beat the man and his own dirty game.
The story of a cat with a 45 caliber claws, the chicks he loved, the Hoodlam Army he led, and the Racket Empire he ruled from Harlem to Watts.
Cohen says that after the film's release and initial success, AIP called me immediately and said, "You'd better get a sequel going before these actors decide they want an enormous amount of money to reappear."

(36:36):
Ali started syndicated, Colin published in late February 1973, said, "Black Seaser has just opened nationally and looks like AIP's biggest hits in slaughter and Blackula."
In Sam Arkov's autobiography, he said Black Seaser earned $2 million in domestic rentals and called it a hit that needed a sequel.
How will Reigns in the Atlantic Constitution wrote in his review that quote, "This is not a movie with goes in for a lot of your subtle touches.

(36:59):
There are however about four minutes of good filmmaking in the film's 92 minute running time.
Black Seaser opens with a nicely done vignette of the young Gibbs, laid by Omar Jeffery, getting his start in crime as a Harlem shooshine boy.
The rest of the movie is a celebration of the most virulent racial stereotypes.
That fact does not seem to bother American International, the white-owned company that has been making a mint on the new movie racism.

(37:21):
Ron Tyson in the New York Daily World began his review saying, "To get right to the point, this movie is trash.
Personally, I have found most of the products of the new wave of Black films to be quite offensive, but this is most definitely the worst of the lot."
He later called it one of the most sadistic pieces of celluloid he had ever seen and said AIP's purpose seems to be clear.
Spend the least amount of money and insult the Black community, to grade the Black women, reinforce racism wherever possible, and rake in all the long green.

(37:49):
Sit Cassese in the Richmond Times, dispatched praise Gloria Henry's acting, calling her consistently professional throughout, but did not care for the mediocre plot with the bloody killings that soon become superfluous.
He also dinged Black Seaser for his ending, calling it not particularly good and noting that it "deviates from the American International Release Synopsis."
The Philadelphia Inquirer, Rove Dew Headline, said the film was "a Caesar to Barry, not one to praise."

(38:14):
And the first paragraph said Black Caesar is another one of those gourd drench fantasies, which Black audiences are being confronted with on a regular basis these days.
The reviewer said Williamson was kind of a Black Charles Bronson, except Hansimer, but said he had a rudimentary, muscle-bound acting technique.
But Jean Dietrich in the Louisville Courier Journal praised Black Caesar for being, quote, "well done in action packed, several cuts among many in today's Blackskit Whitey genre.

(38:40):
And for all its amyerality, it's a morality tale in the same sense that gangster films of the 30s did not allow the mob leaders to get off scot-free."
Dietrich said, though, that Cohen had bitten off more than he can cope with.
He's tried to tackle so much that some of his efforts fail.
His films would be improved if he'd, quote, "include out some of its extraneous material."
Some prominent rappers have sampled James Brown's Black Caesar score, including iced tea, who uses samples from the boss on his track You Played Yourself.

(39:08):
Trick Danny, Proudigee, and Nas have also used beats from the boss for their songs.
And Black Caesar's name-checked in public enemy's song, Burn Hollywood Burn.
In it, guest rapper Big Daddy Canes and just leaving a showing of driving Miss Daisy saying, "I got Black Caesar back at the crib.
Canes makes another reference to the movie in his song, How You Get A Record Deal.
And, cool, Keith references the main character in the song, Keith Turbo from his album Black All This Lost in Space.

(39:34):
Take off your shirt, I can see your ribs, faking like Tommy Gibbs."
In 2009, Empire named Black Caesar 18th in a poll of the 20-wayest gangster movies you've never seen, probably.
[Music]
You know, my thoughts on Black Caesar kind of complicated.

(39:55):
I'm interested in hearing yours, though. What did you think of the movie?
Well, I'll tell you my favorite part of this whole film was seeing the old New York and the people therein.
These aren't extras, these are just people who have to be walking the streets.
And most of them are looking directly into the camera, what's going on?
You're talking about the part where Tommy has been shot and he's staggering around the street.

(40:16):
I'm talking about any time he's walking down the street.
Everybody with a buddy in the background is, unless they have a line, they're just there on the street at the time,
and most of them are staring directly into the camera.
I've never watched a movie where I felt so seen.
[Laughter]
Yeah, they are all looking at us.
That didn't bother me so much. I kind of figured this is a little bit of gorilla filmmaking on Cohen's part.
It didn't bother me at all. I love that about this film.

(40:37):
I don't mean bother in the sense of, "I hated it."
I just meant the fact that I didn't even really register it, because we're looking at Tommy.
They're looking at Tommy, and of course, we're all looking in the same line of sight.
They're just looking our direction while we look their direction.
I didn't really register that as being a huge thing.
I do think that the scenes of him walking down the street, not the injured part,

(40:59):
but the initial, when we first meet Tommy, and he's walking down the street,
that was a really exciting start to the movie, or at least the adult Tommy part of the movie,
because he just looks fantastic.
I don't know that anyone's costumes really comport with the time periods that they're in until we get to 1972,
but damn, Fred really makes a good gangster.
His outfits are on point.

(41:20):
He does. He dresses like an old-time gangster. You see from those movies from the '30s and '40s.
Yeah, you're a little Caesar, I guess.
So he's playing the part, and he's playing it well.
I mean, Tommy Gibbs is playing the part of the gangster. I don't mean Fred Williamson, who's...
Playing Tommy Gibbs?
Who's playing Tommy Gibbs? Yeah, this is Tommy Gibbs playing up the gangster.
Because none of the other gangsters we see, the other Mafiosus dresses anything like that.

(41:41):
No, but as they say, dressed for the job he wants, and that's the job he wants.
He wants to be a '30s-style gangland boss. And he does become one.
And he does very rapidly, or else time is passing without us knowing time is passing.
Because there really aren't any cues.
What we see in terms of what New York City looks like and what people are wearing,

(42:03):
they don't really fit with the time period we're supposedly in.
In the 1950s, young Tommy dresses like kids all the time dressed in a t-shirt and ripped jeans.
So there's really no telling from what he's wearing.
And then New York City doesn't look any worse for wear from 1953 to 1965 to 1972.

(42:24):
It all looks terrible.
I didn't notice any examples, but I did read that there were several out-of-time cars visible in this film.
And it's probably during the car chase, but you're watching the car chase.
You're not paying attention to the other cars.
Right. And that would be really hard to control if they don't actually shut down the entire city blocks.
It's obvious they didn't.
According to Larry Cohen's commentary track on the Blu-ray we watched,

(42:45):
all they did was rope shut all the buildings so people wouldn't step out into the oncoming traffic
that's not usually on the sidewalk.
They taped down the cabs horn so that it was constantly blaring and they just let them go off.
So yeah, Gorilla filmmaking and a Spina Senglad that nobody got mowed down for that scene.
Is it really could have gone badly?
My complicated feelings about this movie are what I think of Tommy Gibbs, the character, though.

(43:09):
He's part of me wants to love a Fred Williamson character, but part of me, most of me really hates Tommy Gibbs.
Well, we watched Bucktown maybe a month ago, a month and a half, and Fred Williamson is the star in that.
And in that movie he's the good guy.
And Thalmas Rasula plays the guy who he's bad and then he gets worse.
And in this movie that's Tommy Gibbs.

(43:30):
He's bad and then he gets worse.
Right. Tommy is not a fun character to watch.
And I think even an old gangster movie, it's the anti hero and you get behind him.
But Tommy doesn't really do anything you can get behind.
He's obviously taking out rival gangsters, but he's also being just as disrespectful and horrible to the people he supposedly cares about.
Especially Helen.

(43:51):
She takes the brunt of it and I feel so bad for her.
The only satisfaction you get in this story I think is probably when McKinney gets his at the end because you hate him a little bit more.
And by speaking of Bucktown, Art Lund was basically the same character only a lot more rural than he is here.
He's corrupt. He's racist.
He's just a terrible guy.
I'm sure he's a lovely person in real life.

(44:13):
He's very talented, but Jesus, I hate him so much on screen.
And I never mind seeing him get killed.
I do think he plays the part of a racist well though.
At least got the link go down.
That's for sure.
He's very believable in the part.
I mentioned a couple of instances where they were performing in a black box.
Yeah.
Just out of Tommy with his gun and then they're playing pool.

(44:34):
And that's a budgetary thing.
You don't have a set to use.
You just throw in a black background.
It's kind of artsy, but it's really a budgetary thing.
I thought it worked really well.
Yeah.
But we just mentioned it to be obnoxious, but I'm sure anyone watching the film didn't even notice.
I think that's a cool way to deal with your budget restrictions.
It's just like community theater.
Turn down the lights.

(44:55):
One spot.
So we were able to see the full ending, not the cutoff part.
A lot of the critics in the reviews that I read saw it too.
In fact, one even mentioned that a day after I wrote this, A.I.P. changed the ending.
So it was well known that this was happening, at least for critics.
But for the audience, they may not have realized that there was another version of this movie

(45:17):
where Tommy dies at the end.
And they're probably lucky because that is a really weird scene.
It's weird because the music plays and you see Tommy talking to these kids as they're approaching him.
But we can't hear what he's saying because it's all blown out by the music.
And I wonder, is there any cut where we can hear what he's saying?
Because it's just kind of maddening to see him talking to them.

(45:39):
They're just sitting there on a stoop.
They're not a street gang.
This is just a bunch of teenagers sitting around.
No, they're probably a gang, but they're just saying it out.
Maybe, but they're not menacing until he starts talking to them.
And then they're sitting there like, you know what?
Let's get this guy.
And so they do.
And I don't know.
Did Tommy say something to kind of spur that?
We'll never know.
Well, again, Larry Cohen's commentary.

(46:01):
He says that these kids just thought he was a drunk or a drugie or something inside of the beat him up.
We do see them steal his watch after they beat him up.
But I would think that if he was talking with any sort of particular that he might be able to convey that maybe he's not drunk.
Maybe.
It's what he was saying.
We don't know what he was saying.
He could have been saying, hey, wow, I used to live here.

(46:22):
Do you guys live around here?
Who knows?
And they probably just thought because of the way he's dressed that maybe he had money.
And obviously he's wounded.
So he's easy prey.
There you go.
He wasn't still carrying that box from Tiffany, though.
He was carrying his ledgers.
Right.
Carrying ledgers, which they didn't care about when we see them kind of flapping in the breeze later on where he's dropped them.
Well, he was using them to defend himself against them too.

(46:44):
So that was kind of interesting because that was his defense during the whole film was the only thing he had going for him was those ledgers.
And he's holding those up to defend himself, but it doesn't work anymore because they work his fists.
Yeah.
Yeah, that was just a really odd scene.
I can see my audience was having sat through all that would look at that and be like, wow, what a waste of my money.

(47:05):
I don't know.
I think that the abrupt cut when he's just walks into the slum and then it fades to the date and then fades out.
That leaves me wanting something.
I like the longer version when he dies at the end.
It's very 70s.
Well, I like the sort of artistic nature of him just walking to his own childhood, basically reliving that.
Maybe he's like stared at the camera sort of 400 blows style and we had pop up at the end.

(47:30):
That would have been kind of already.
Instead, we get a date and now we finally know what year it is when we hadn't been a prize of that from anytime since 1965 dawned on the movie.
So that I thought was a very strange choice.
Just having him stand there, well, it was a choice born out of necessity because they had to cut that scene.
They were making a sequel that couldn't have him die.

(47:51):
Right.
And the only purpose of having that date at the end is so that you have a date of death for Tommy gives.
Oh, yeah.
And so when he doesn't die, it's not necessary.
This is the day he returned to his childhood home and we don't know what happened after that until we see L.A.P. and Arlem,
which we haven't seen yet.
Nope.
And apparently it's not as good, but they demanded a sequel.
So it's not hard to find that ending.
We have even several different versions of that ending.

(48:14):
It's out there.
I think that they could have had him beat up by those kids and not die.
That could have worked.
I mean, does it definitively show him dead at the end?
They don't stab him.
They just hit him with a metal airplane toy.
They leave him for dead.
They leave him for dead, but he may not be dead.
He certainly was resilient enough to get shot in downtown Manhattan and then wander out to whatever project he grew up in.

(48:37):
A day and a half later or something.
Yeah.
Well, not a full day and a half.
After being further injured by McKinney in his office.
It's probably like maybe 8 a.m.
I'm guessing.
So we're talking about 19 hours from the time you got shot.
The town you get speed up by these kids.
Man, if I walk for an hour, I need to lay down for a day.
So good for Tommy.
He's really fit.
But I can see why they cut that.

(48:59):
I can see why the audience has hated it.
It's just so oddly done.
I don't think it was cut because anybody hated it.
I think it was cut because Arkoff wanted a sequel.
Well, Cohen said that the test audience has hated it.
And that's why they decided to cut it.
So that's the story that Larry Cohen gives on that commentary.
Arkoff had already told him, don't kill off your hero.
And then the success of the movie prompted the sequel.

(49:22):
If it had flopped, I'm sure Arkoff wouldn't be like, oh, we got to have a sequel.
And I'm sure he was waiting to see what happened before he would greenlight that.
Yeah, your timeline dies better.
But it the way that it's explained to us and all the things I read, it's all jumbled together.
And the sequel happened really rapidly after the original.
It did.
They both came out in the same year in 1973.

(49:43):
So there wasn't a lot of time spent dithering about it.
It just happened.
Well, I think I read it.
I only spent out two and a half weeks making this film in production.
True.
So probably very little post-production.
Can you picture Sammy Davis Jr. in this role?
Absolutely not.
I think it would be a comedy.
It would be so funny to see him.
Well, I don't even know him by his stick basically, but to see him try to pull off this role.

(50:08):
Hit a black Caesar be called the candy man.
Well, the candy man can.
Fred Williamson is so physically imposing.
He's an ex-football player.
He's what six five six four, I read different things.
And he's just so built up.
That's why he can walk up to these gangsters and just sort of loom over them.
And they cave pretty fast.

(50:30):
The fact that he's so what's the word formidable?
Yes, he's just all around formidable and everybody gets that by looking at him.
And that's why nobody says no to him.
And Sammy Davis Jr. I mean, I could take that guy.
I'm sure, especially now.
Maybe it's been Sammy would have gotten in the eye instead of the leg.
That's so wrong.

(50:51):
How dare you?
Yeah, I can't believe that this notion was even entertained for a minute.
It would have had to have been a comedy.
It couldn't have been anything.
But from when I read it, it sounded like he wanted to do something dark.
But I think there probably would have been some script changes.
There might have been a request everyone else to be at the same stature as Sammy Davis Jr.

(51:12):
I just can't picture it at all.
Well, the whole idea of it being Caesar's Cassisar was short.
So.
Yes, I know.
In watching this movie, seeing, you know, it's not a little guy.
It's not the pizza pizza guy.
And so I just think of Caesar being commander of an empire.
And that's what Tommy became.
So I don't take it literally as guy in Toga.

(51:34):
I take it more figuratively as commander of a vast empire.
Right.
That's how I played out.
But originally it was intended for Sammy Davis Jr. based on his size.
That's why this script was commissioned in the first place.
I think Gloria Henry did a fantastic job in this movie.
But having seen her in Savage Sisters, I really expected her to.
Beat the crap out of Tommy at some point.

(51:56):
He deserved it.
I didn't think she really stood out in this film.
I think there were scenes where she stood out as well.
She was only a woman for most of it.
Like the scene in the office where he tries to buy her a gift and she just throws it on the floor.
I thought that was well done because you could just tell by the look on her face that she has had it with them.
She's probably already taken up with Joe at that point.
And the fact that he rapes her, she should have killed him then.

(52:19):
But she obviously had reached her limit long before that.
However, in the scene where Tommy beats up Joe at their Beverly Hills house, she's just yelling.
And she doesn't really do a whole lot that maybe think that she could do a lot better as an actress.
They could have given her a lot more to do in the scene.
That was a missed opportunity.
Well, let's bestow a grade on Black Caesar as we always do using our AIP scale or AS Awesome.

(52:42):
I is intermediate and he is pathetic.
You go first, Jeff.
But looking at this film and the time it came out, it's not long after the Godfather.
And I think there is definitely an influence of that film here.
Especially during the California scene.
Yeah, well the music's playing as kind of Godfather Esk as well during that scene.
But just the idea of a crime lord rising up and taking over the whole area.

(53:05):
But in this instance, the guy rises up takes over an area that nobody really wants anyway.
And I love seeing Old New York, Old Dirty New York, Old Gritty New York.
And as I mentioned, the people in the background are real New Yorkers.
And it's fun to see them in their element.
I found myself watching the background players every time there was a scene in the street more than the action.

(53:27):
That was supposed to be paying attention to.
And I also said that I liked the art seeness of using the black box when the budget didn't call for anything more.
And in retrospect, knowing that a lot of this was shot at Larry Cohen's house and backyard was kind of cool.
And this does feel a lot like gorilla filmmaking.
All the stuff on the street is shot in that fashion.
A lot of it's handheld, if not all of it.

(53:50):
And when Tommy is shot, we see this shot from a building is up her window.
And he's just rolling around on the street and people are staring at him trying to help him.
Very concerned because there's not a camera on the ground during that time.
So they don't know what's going on.
They just see this guy who's obviously hurt.
And then the camera goes down to the ground and people are still staring at the camera and still going what's going on.
And I love all that.

(54:11):
It's so real.
Even though the story itself is kind of ridiculous, the character is not one that I could relate to.
The only thing that was satisfactory was McKinney dying a humiliating death.
And I prefer the original non theatrical ending though I like where Tommy dies.
I think he needs to have his come up in because he's not a great guy.

(54:32):
But despite all that, I think this is a really good movie and I think give it an A.
What are your thoughts?
Well, reading the reviews from the time, it seemed like a lot of people were really against the movie for being violent and for degrading black people.
And I don't know that I have the best basis on which to form an opinion on that.
Those critics were probably for the most part white themselves.
I can't say for sure.

(54:54):
And I do know that a lot of black people at the time were against this as a cultural phenomenon of the black exploitation movies.
And a lot of that focused on this movie in particular.
But also this was a huge hit for A.I.P.
So it seems like mainstream black culture accepted the movie and there were a few outliers that didn't.
And now I'm in 2025 looking back on this movie and just taking it for what it is now and not for where it was as part of a genre in its time.

(55:23):
And now I think it's a really fun movie.
My main objection to it is how repellent the character of Tommy Gibbs is but he's supposed to be that's the whole point of the movie so that's not a ding against the movie.
That's just me wishing I could like him a lot more than I do because I wanted to and I don't.
But I think that also is what makes the movie good because they have this character he's not even an anti hero he's just a bad guy.

(55:47):
And yet you follow his story and you can't look away because it's played by such a compelling actor and everything that's happening is really interesting.
And this just let me try to agree with you that this is a good movie and it's worth an A.I love this genre.
I love so many things about it. I love the music chosen. The soundtrack is fantastic.
It is.
It's so good.

(56:08):
And I don't know what the big deal was with James Brown delivering too much music.
I mean I edit music myself and it's not that big of a deal. You just fade out here.
Bade up there overlay this with a similar beat doesn't really pose that much of a difficulty as a digital editor anyway.
What they had to do back then I'm not really sure but black exploitation movies have this underdog story as well.

(56:30):
People who are powerless becoming powerful and sticking it to the man and I think that's a story that anybody can get behind.
And I love that about this movie and I love that about movies like coffee and bucktown and a lot of the other ones that we've seen where people who have nothing gets something and I think we can all be inspired by that and black Caesar is an exemplary movie of the genre.

(56:52):
So it gets an A for me to those other films you mentioned they're driven by the revenge plot and the one instance of revenge is when McKinney gets his and that is the most satisfying part of all black Caesar I think it is.
So that is a recurring theme he kind of gets revenge against his dad to not by killing him but just by getting to confront him with everything that he's lost and all the potential that he had that didn't get realized because he didn't have a father.

(57:17):
And we don't really necessarily blame the dad because he had his own struggles but we get to see what that meant for a boy growing up in poverty.
And that's something that you probably wouldn't expect to see in a film of this caliber.
No it's a little deeper than you would think upon first impression.
It's nuanced and we get both sides and there's no black and white obviously there's black and white in terms of who's good and who's bad but in that instance from a figure to standpoint there's no pure bad pure good and I think for a Larry Cohen movie it's really good to acknowledge that humanity.

(57:50):
To find out more about Black Caesar and other films we've covered on the American International Podcast you can visit our website aippod.com and there you can find posters,
lobby cards trailers and more plus you can contact us to tell us what you thought about the films or what you didn't like what we said about the films that we've covered again that's aippod.com.
And I think it's time for us to stagger off home for the American International Podcast I'm Cheryl Lightfoot and I'm Jeff Markin and we'll meet you at the drive in.

(58:18):
Follow the American International podcast on Instagram and letterbox @aip_pod and on Facebook at facebook.com/AmericanInternationalPodcast
The American International podcast is produced and edited by Jeff Markin and Cheryl Lightfoot.

(58:39):
A girl hungry for too many things.
The American International podcast is part of the Pop Culture Entertainment Network.
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