Across 110th Street (Soundtrack Sundays)

The Blaxploitation era gave the world of cinema some of the its finest theme tunes. Three stand out, though.

Isaac Hayes’ Oscar-winning Theme From Shaft from 1971 with Charles ‘Skip’ Pitts’ uber funky wah-wah riff and those gorgeous Stax horns; Superfly, which showcased Curtis Mayfield’s honeyed falsetto coo and powerful anti-drugs message. Then there’s Bobby Womack’s Across 110th Street, which not only opened the film of the same name but also Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown. And it closed that one too.*

A New York set crime drama directed by Barry Shear and released in 1972, Across 110th Street featured a number of other songs written and performed by Bobby Womack (and his band of the time Peace), as well as a soul-jazz musical score from J.J. Johnson, a man mainly known as a trombonist. I know little about Johnson, but it’s been said that he did for that instrument what Charlie Parker did for the sax.

A protege of Sam Cooke, whose voice obviously inspired his own vocal stylings, Bobby Womack delivers his finest moment here, his world-weary croon giving the lowdown on life in Harlem, ‘the capital of every ghetto town’, lyrics that reflect the world of central character Jim Harris. As he puts it himself: ‘Look at me! You’re looking at a 42 year old ex-con nigger with no schooling, no trade, and a medical problem! Now who the hell would want me for anything but washing cars or swinging a pick?’

Harris is one of two low-level Harlem criminals who, dressed as cops, rob the Mafia of over £300,000 in a daytime raid on a flat in a busy tenement flat. The heist goes wrong, and in the hail of machine gun fire, three local black mobsters and two Mafia footsoldiers will be gunned down, while in the aftermath, as the thieves make their getaway, two members of the NYPD will also lose their lives.

Two cops are central to the movie. The first is Captain Frank Mattelli (Anthony Quinn), a fifty-something cop hanging on to his job desperately, fearing he’ll be replaced by a younger man. His fists play an important part in any investigation, and he’s also shown to be in the pay of a Harlem crime kingpin who refers to himself as Doc Motherfucking Johnson, played memorably by a gravel voiced Richard Ward.

The other is Lieutenant William Pope (Yaphet Kotto), a younger and more even tempered cop, who is keen to observe police protocol at all costs and who has been put in charge of the case, largely because he is black. Yes, Matelli’s obviously the bad cop to Pope’s good. But the Italian-American is never one dimensional and, like Pope, he desperately wants to see justice achieved.

As this pair attempt to solve the case, the Italian Mafia – aided and abetted (sometimes grudgingly) by their local black gangster associates – also want payback. Sadistic mob lieutenant Nick D’Salvio (Anthony Franciosa) is tasked to get the money back. He wastes no time in tracking down the thieves, first coming across weak link getaway driver Henry J. Jackson (Antonio Fargas), who draws suspicion on himself by immediately heading out for some flamboyant whoring and touring on the streets of Harlem with his ill-gotten gains.

He meets the kind of grisly end that makes you think that the remaining two thieves, Jim Harris (Paul Benjaman) and Joe Logart (Ed Bernard) might be better being caught by the cops.

Sometimes Across 110th Street resembles an old episode of Kojak, which maybe isn’t surprising as Barry Shear had forged his directing reputation on TV shows such as Police Women and Police Story. He does, though, demonstrate some real flair throughout the film and he excels at action scenes – and there’s plenty of those to enjoy. This is where Johnson’s score proves most effective too.

Despite the two songwriting sources, the music is unified nicely with Johnson tracks like Harlem Love Theme and Harlem Clavinette echoing the theme tune, while there are also an instrumental tale on it and an Across 110th Street pt 2.

Here’s Bobby solo on Jools Holland’s Later with the title track:

* In a different version of the song. It also was used by Ridley Scott in American Gangster from 2007.