Cast and Crew: Barry Shear (Director, Executive Producer); Wally Ferris (Novel); Luther Davis (Screenplay); J.J. Johnson (Score); Bobby Womack (Soundtrack); Paul Benjamin, Antonio Fargas, Anthony Franciosa, Gloria Hendry, Burt Young
What It’s About: When three men rip-off a mob collection point in Harlem, killing members of Doc Johnson’s (Richard Ward) crime organization and the Mafia, as well as two police officers who attempt to stop their getaway, will they be able to get Across 110th Street and escape Harlem? Will the cops or the crooks reach the thieves first?
Why Watch it Today?: Yaphet Kotto, who celebrates his 74th birthday today, shines in one of his early roles as Lt. Pope. Pope is a dedicated young police detective who seeks to solve the case and prove himself to the criminals and Captain Matelli (Anthony Quinn, who was also an Executive Producer), an older, prejudiced cop who knows the beat but has allowed it to corrupt him. Across 110th Street is an excellent crime film, with equal time spent with the amateurs on the lam, the cops investigating the case, and the brutal mobsters chasing the men down.
Where to Get It: iTunes, Amazon, or Netflix
Mo Rating for Movember: Kotto, Quinn, Franciosa, Fargas, and Paul Benjamin are all clean-shaven, but Doc Johnson’s icy cool henchman Shevvy (Gilbert Lewis) sports a spectacular Mo, as does Joe Logart (Ed Bernard) one of the three men committing the initial robbery.
3 out of 5 Mos
Shevvy collecting Movember donations
The League of Dead Films 
I kind of want to post this here, just to be a jerk:
I do love Jackie Brown…it’s a former Movie of the Day, after all. That being said, I love Across 110th Street, too, it’s a good flick and well worth the time to check it out, and the song was recorded for it. Never thought about it before, but it is kind of weird that QT scored this scene with a song about a street in Harlem for a movie set in California. Then again, the song does have the lyric “Harlem is the capital of every ghetto town.”
One thing I’ll give QT, he used the soundtrack album cut of Bobby Womack’s title track, while the film used this odd version instead:
I definitely prefer the album cut, this one is definitely more “1970s Crime Film Opening.”