Overview
Black Caesar (stylized as Black Cæsar and released theatrically in the UK as Godfather of Harlem) is a 1973 American blaxploitation crime drama film written and directed by Larry Cohen and starring Fred Williamson, Gloria Hendry and Julius Harris. It features a musical score (Black Caesar) by James Brown (with heavy input from his bandleader Fred Wesley), his first experience with writing music for film. A sequel titled Hell Up in Harlem was released in late 1973.
Plot
Tommy Gibbs (Fred Williamson) is an African-American who grew up in Harlem, New York City. As a kid, he was brutally assaulted by a cop named McKinney. The incident led him to a life of crime. As an adult, he joins the New York mafia and becomes the head of a black crime syndicate in Harlem. He wages a gang war with the Italian mobsters of New York City and begins to establish a criminal empire, keeping a ledger book of all his dealings as leverage over his business associates, including McKinney.
He meets and falls in love with a singer named Helen (Gloria Hendry) and marries her. She is unhappy as he is violent and rapes her. Eventually his enemies conspire with her, leading to an attempt on his life that leaves him shot and wounded. Killing his would-be assassins, he returns to his office to retrieve the ledger book. McKinney meets him there and attempts to humiliate him before killing him. Tommy overpowers McKinney and beats him to death. Retrieving the ledger, a badly wounded Tommy returns to the house where he grew up, but a street gang attacks, robs and, presumably, kills him.
Cast
Fred Williamson as Tommy Gibbs
Omer Jeffery as Young Tommy Gibbs
Gloria Hendry as Helen Bradley
Art Lund as Captain Jack McKinney
D'Urville Martin as Reverend Rufus
Julius Harris as Mr. Gibbs
Minnie Gentry as Mama Gibbs
Philip Roye as Joe "The Brain" Washington
Michael Jeffery as Young Joe Washington
William Wellman Jr. as Alfred Coleman
James Dixon as "Irish" Bryant
Val Avery as Cardoza
Patrick McAllister as Grossfield
Don Pedro Colley as "Crawdaddy"
Myrna Hansen as Virginia Coleman
From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).