Hell Up in Harlem

Hell Up in Harlem (1973)

Runtime: 94 minutes

Directed by: Larry Cohen

Starring: Fred Williamson, Julius Harris, Gloria Hendry, Margaret Avery, D’Urville Martin

From: AIP

A review done via request. Regrettably, I don’t have a definitive list of what’s been asked to me to review here on Letterboxd and elsewhere. However, from now on that’ll change and soon I’ll get to the few pictures I've been called to check out. It was elsewhere that someone wanted me to view Black Caesar’s sequel Hell Up in Harlem after I gave a positive review to Caesar less than 3 months ago. Instead of waiting ages to fulfill that request-like I typically do-might as well fulfill it now, while I still recalled the original picture rather well.

Larry Cohen’s Black Caesar was a pretty good blaxploitation version of a 30’s gangster movie where Fred Williamson rises in power to become an underworld success-although he wasn’t someone you should root for, nevermind the sexual assault against his lady Gloria Hendry. The film was a bigger success than expected-so much so that this sequel was rushed into production for the purpose of having the actors return without wanting more money, so Cohen more or less made up the story as they went along-no kidding.

This does retcon the first’s conclusion and at times does seem like they were making it up as they went along. Be that as it may, Harlem was still a good time. Besides The Hammer & Hendry, it was nice to see returning faces Julius Harris & D’Urville Martin reprising their roles. There was still some inspired filmmaking from Cohen along w/ a groovy score from Fonce Mizell & Freddie Perren, featuring awesome songs from Edwin Starr.

The person who recommended Harlem to me noted that there was a sequence “straight out of James Bond.” I discovered this was a raid on a compound “on an island in the Florida Keys” where Hammer and his confederates killed many SOB’s. Blaxploitation pictures sometimes had these big sequences-I was reminded of a similar raid in the final act of Black Belt Jones-but the one in Hell concluded the opening act.

As there are some crackin’ action scenes and many people who are gunned down throughout, this is an asset in making a rushed cash-in watchable instead of a disaster.