Harlem Nights (1989)

Eddie Murphy.

Eddie Eddie Eddie Eddie Eddie....

(long, drawn-out sigh)

When he made his national debut on "Saturday Night Live" in 1980, it was to his detriment that it was during one of the most troubled, under-written and talentless seasons ever to be viewed by the network of this long-standing chestnut. In fact he, Tim Kazurinsky, Robin Duke and Joe Piscopo were the only hold-overs when SNL was completely revamped one season later.

Joe who?

That's another rant for another time, but back to Eddie....

A breakthrough talent, Eddie showed comfort and ease with an audience and, darn it, he was funny! It was simplicity itself that he would be the one who made it big in such gargantuan hit movies as 48 HRS, Trading Places, Beverly Hills Cop and the under-valued The Golden Child. Eddie's star burned hot and bright for quite some time, too....

You know who else's star burnt brightly after they broke away from SNL? Chevy Chase's.

Draw from that what you will.

But it was around the time that Best Defense came out in 1984, (which was actually filmed in '82 but then the producers added Eddie footage to it so it would do better, but anyway...) that audiences started to look at Eddie a little differently. Noticing, perhaps for the first time, that maybe Eddie Murphy being Eddie Murphy wasn't enough to guarantee that the movie he was in would be that funny.

I think that Eddie must have realized the same thing, since he pushed himself as hard as he did in playing multiple roles in Coming to America and returned to familiar roles when he featured in Beverly Hills Cop II. And it wasn't like his movies weren't making money. They earned millions, right and left, and he was a top box-office draw for many years.

You know who else was a top box-office draw for many years? Burt Reynolds.

Draw from that what you will.

Unfortunately, a major symptom of being a top box-office draw and breakthrough comic/actor is that your ego becomes something of a cocoon and all those people you surround yourself with begin polishing your self-image to such a high sheen that all you can see is your own awesomeness.

This happened to Eddie. So much so, in fact, that he came up with the same thought that many other unfortunates in his place came up with:

"...you know, I bet I could do this directing thing. You point the camera, tell other people what to do, how hard could it be?"

You know who else thought they could direct? Kevin Costner.

Draw from that what you will.

So Paramount Pictures, never ones to turn down such a request from their top cash cow, agreed to Eddie's demands...I mean Eddie's request...and allowed him free rein to bring his vision to life.

It was the studio's bad luck in thinking that Eddie's creation would be THE BIGGEST AND BEST COMEDY EVER MADE IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD.

What did they get? A '30s gangster drama with a couple of funny scenes.

This, my friends, is the lead-in to one of the biggest disappointments since New Coke.

Harlem Nights was not only directed by Eddie, but also co-written by, executive-produced by and starred him as well. And what parts he couldn't do, he filled with family members, friends and sycophants. This is almost never a good sign.

It was easy to see where Paramount thought they had a hot commodity on their hands, what with the cast that Eddie assembled. For one thing, he would be starring alongside comic legend and longtime friend Richard Pryor, not to mention fellow big-leaguer Redd Foxx. Right there is a lineup that would knock 'em dead at the Apollo. Onscreen, however...?

But before I get ahead of myself, let me explain the plot: speakeasy owner Sugar Ray (Pryor) and his adopted son Quick (Murphy) find themselves at the mercy of ruthless gangster Bugsy Calhoune (Michael Lerner) and his henchman, crooked cop Phil Cantone (Danny Aiello). Together, Ray and Quick devise a scam they hope will save their lives and livelihood....

And no, that doesn't exactly sound like a comedy, does it?

As a matter of fact it doesn't. For some poor movie-goer expecting a laff-fest unparalleled only to experience shoot-outs, blood, Della Reese beaten down with trash cans and shot in the foot, more misogyny than a Sam Peckinpah movie and every four, six, seven and twelve-letter word known to man, I doubt they would be the ones to readily accept this as an Eddie Murphy film - especially since there were few to no laughs to be found.

The look of the film can't be faulted, however. Cinematographer Woody Omens also brought a slick sheen to such big comedies as Mel Brooks' History of the World Part I and Eddie's Coming to America. The '30s are authentically brought to life with an art deco vibrancy. It's all pretty to look at, to be sure, but that's like moving into a house because it has nice shingles.

You can tell right off that this is a vanity project, too, since Eddie forgets to make anything look and be as funny as we know he can. Could you imagine a spoof of the Sting movies with a cast of comic giants such as these? Eddie has a sense of humor and proved that as far back as SNL.

The biggest shock here is NO ONE is very funny in this movie.

Pryor plays his role sympathetically, but without the humor and aplomb he brought to movies like Silver Streak, Bustin' Loose and Stir Crazy.

Foxx shows none of the humor or even the gruff slyness he brought the world in TV's "Sanford and Son".

Not even Eddie has any funny scenes, which is the biggest shock of them all, since this is his film to begin with.

Anyone who only knew Della Reese from TV's "Touched by an Angel" will be shocked into catatonia from the language she uses here as a salty whorehouse madame. Maybe she took the "Angel" role as penance?

And as far as misogyny goes, talented women such as Jasmine Guy, Berlinda Tolbert and Lela Rochon come and go during the course of this film but don't really serve as much more than window dressing that serves no purpose other than that. Even Guy, as a Creole assassin/seductress doesn't get any big scenes. And certainly no funny ones.

What with all the crew they had on this thing, seemingly catering to Eddie's every whim, shouldn't there have been someone on staff to remind him that this was a comedy and should have some actual humor in the proceedings?

Remember when I said there were a couple of funny parts of Harlem Nights? That is only due to two people in this entire cast of dozens. Two.

One of them is Danny Aiello as the crooked cop Cantone. Aiello will always be a great actor in my book and played a broad stereotype of the bad cop with the dumb grin and vicious attitude perfectly. As a villain he is certainly effective, a soft-spoken manner hiding a temper that can flare in a minute. He makes scenes come alive when he's onscreen, which is distressingly too little. It's also depressing that Aiello's character is dispatched with so arbitrarily, locked in an airtight bank safe and told to "take small breaths". It's okay, though, because he's the bad white guy.

The other bright spot is thanks to one of Eddie's friends at the time, Arsenio Hall. Arsenio's character, billed only as "The Crying Man", chases Quick all over Harlem, thinking him responsible for his brother's death. On a constant crying jag throughout, and screaming threats at Quick, Hall is funny in spite of the high annoyance factor of such a character. In fact, during the ensuing shootout between them, a sight gag is executed (so to speak) that is one of the best of its kind I had ever seen in my life and, quite honestly, made me laugh out loud upon seeing its result. It was a good moment, but nothing that preceded or followed matched its energy or level of humor. Too bad.

But not too bad as far as Paramount goes, since Harlem Nights made money just like Eddie's other movies. Fans seemed to like it, but critics throughout the civilized world slammed it with the same two words: "vanity" and "project".

As far as Eddie Murphy goes, the writing was pretty much on the wall. Doomed to go the way of Brad Hall and Gary Kroeger, what with films like Boomerang, Another 48 HRS, Vampire in Brooklyn, Holy Man and Metro, the only thing that saved his career (other than a solid fan base) was his resurrection as a kid's movie star in films like Shrek, Daddy Day Care and Mulan, all of which not only gave him a boost but kept him from fading into obscurity.

Of course, there's also something in the fact that Eddie went from being best known as a fast-talking and funny darling of comedy to...Donkey.

But after proving his self-importance in Harlem Nights, maybe what Eddie Murphy needed was to be equated with an ass.

And by the way; for the curious, the "f" word and its many variations are used 133 times in this film. Since Eddie had a heavy hand in the script, I think we know who to blame for that one.

You know who else liked saying the "f" word a lot? Andrew Dice Clay.

Draw from that what you will.