The Cotton Club ***½ (1984, Richard Gere, Gregory Hines, Diane Lane, Lonette McKee, Bob Hoskins, James Remar, Nicolas Cage, Allen Garfield, Fred Gwynne, Gwen Verdon) – Classic Movie Review 4729

Co-writer/ director Francis Ford Coppola’s stylish and vivacious 1984 film toast to Harlem’s notorious Cotton Club jazz nightclub in 1928 stars Richard Gere and Nicolas Cage as brothers Dixie and Vincent Dwyer tapping into the world of gangsters and Gregory Hines tapping his feet to stardom as Sandman Williams.

In the screenplay by Coppola and William Kennedy, trouble comes to Harlem when Gere’s Dixie falls for gangster’s moll Vera Cicero (Diane Lane).

Coppola’s tasty and flavoursome movie is packed full of good ingredients: great music from Duke Ellington, a lovely John Barry score, stupendous dance sequences, dazzling sets designed by Richard Sylbert and visuals by cinematographer Stephen Goldblatt, sympathetic performances and many telling moments throughout.

Yet, even so, sometimes Coppola seems to falter, not seeming to know whether to go for a full-scale musical or to try for a thrilling gangster tale, and gets bogged down in a narrative that proceeds by fits and starts insead of dynamically and smoothly. He must have been very aware that gangster movies work for him and musicals don’t after the failure of One from the Heart (1981). So, in the end, maybe it is not as special as it should have been (at least for the extravagant $58 million spent on it) but it remains thoroughly watchable, strongly solid, appealing entertainment.

It also stars Lonette McKee, James Remar, Allen Garfield, Gwen Verdon, Joe Dallesandro, Jennifer Grey, Tom Waits, Diane Venora, Woody Strode, Larry Fishburne and Julian Beck. But it is Bob Hoskins, as the club boss Owney Madden, and Fred Gwynne, as Frenchy Demange, who steal the show.

Also in the cast are Lisa Jane Persky, Maurice Hines, John P Ryan, Novella Nelson, Ron Karabatsos, Glenn Withrow, Wynonna Smith, Thelma Carpenter, Charles Honi Coles, Larry Marshall, Ed O’Ross, Frederick Downs Jr, Tucker Smallwood, Bill Graham, Dayton Allen, Kim Chan, Ed Rowan, Leonard Termo, James Rus so, Giancarlo Esposito, Marc Coppola and Sofia Coppola.

The Godfather‘s Mario Puzo had a hand in the story with Coppola and Kennedy.

It was not much of a hit, taking back $25,900,000 in the US, though if it hadn’t cost as much it could have been a success. Coppola claimed that producer Robert Evans ‘set the tone for the level of extravagance long before I got there’.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4729

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