The Keep it Oldskool Movie of the week

 

 

 

The  Cotton Club  was released in 1984 and was directed by Francis Ford Coppola . It was set in the 1930s and had fictional characters interwoven with non-fictional characters. The movie starred  Richard Gere, Diane Lane, Lonnete Mckee as well as Nicolas Cage, James Remar and Bob Hoskins.

 

 

The movie’s main fictional characters are Sandman Williams (Hines) a “hoofer” (tap dancer) with dreams of making it big even it means leaving his dance partner brother. There is Sandman’s friend from the neighborhood Dixie Dwyer (Gere) who plays a mean horn and who also wants to get out of the neighborhood. Dixie and Sandman lives  are mixed in to the story of real life gangsters Owney Madden who owns the Cotton Club and Dutch Schultz. This movie shows the outrage African Americans felt about a club that featured the greatest performers of their generation however most African Americans couldn’t even get in other then the  Bumpy Johnson inspired character Bumpy Rhodes (played by Laurence Fishburne)  We watch as Dixie and Sandman both strive to achieve their goals and the women they loved  Vera and Lila played by Lane and Mckee respectively and the toll it takes on family and friends.

 

Dixie and Vera (Richard Gere and Diane Lane)

 

Sandman Williams (Gregory Hines)

 

Dixie and Dutch Schultz  (Richard Gere and James Remar)

 

 

Owney Madden and Dixie (Bob Hoskins and Richard Gere)

 

 

The Cotton Club is not mentioned as one of the great gangster films ever made. True It is not on the same level as The Godfather, Once Upon a Time in America and Godfather part 2 but that doesn’t take away from the fact that it is a very good movie. There was great acting in even in some of the smaller parts like the one by the directors nephew Nicolas Cage as Dixie’s younger brother Vincent or James Remar as Dutch Schultz.

 

 

 

 

 

KEEP IT OLDSKOOL