Barry Shear's 1972 crime drama, Across 110th Street, hits the ground running with footage of Harlem street life set to the tune of Bobby Womack's song of the same title before exploding into gunfire and bloodied bodies when a theft of Mafia money goes wrong. The gritty immediacy of the film's opening sequence does not lose a beat as an investigation of the murders by a mismatched team of policemen, played by Anthony Quinn (Lawrence of Arabia, Blowing Wild) and Yaphet Kotto (Alien, Live and Let Die), proceeds simultaneously with a hunt for the thieves led by a brutal Mob figure played by Anthony Franciosa (A Face in the Crowd).
Across 110th Street is violent and disturbing even by today's standards, and, as a white-knuckle police story, it has a lot in common with Dirty Harry (1971), The French Connection (1971), Fort Apache the Bronx (1981), Sharky's Machine (1981), and other such films that do not pull any punches with their depictions of the sordid underbelly of city life. Moments of somber tragedy, namely a scene where Quinn and Kotto inform a woman of her husband's death in front of her children and a late scene where Quinn's character exposes his alcohol-soaked weariness, are interspersed with hair-raising chases and uncompromisingly violent altercations. One particular scene with a man on fire jumping out of a burning vehicle compelled me to push the rewind button to marvel at how this could have been filmed before the age of computers.
Anthony Quinn, Yaphet Kotto, and Anthony Franciosa are all incredible in their portrayals of characters that have no boundaries in a setting volatile with racial tension, but my favorite role of Across 110th Street belongs to Paul Benjamin, who also starred in one of my all-time favorite films, Escape from Alcatraz. Benjamin, who plays one of the thieves, has an impressive character arc as a person who gave me the chills during the opening scene only to elicit my genuine sympathy later in the story.
Across 110th Street is a drab urban film that will never look sparklingly tangible in high definition, but this Kino Lorber Blu-ray sports a competent transfer, despite occasional print damage. The undeniably energetic music comes across well on the audio front, but I occasionally had trouble hearing certain exchanges of dialogue. Subtitles would have been a welcome feature, but this Blu-ray has no subtitle option. The only extra is a theatrical trailer of the film. In overall terms, this Blu-ray delivers the goods, and graces us with a film that is so engaging that I did not dwell on the transfer shortcomings while I was following the story.
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Across 110th Street (1972) - Coming in September from Kino Classics
Linear Mode
