Across 110th Street (1972)
Directed by Barry Shear
In a daring robbery, some $300,000 is taken from the Italian mob. Several mafiosi are killed, as are two policemen. Lt. Pope and Capt. Mattelli are two New York City cops trying to break the case. Three small-time criminals are on the run with the money. Will the mafia catch them first, or will the police?
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What critics compared Across 110th Street to
Tarantino completes his laid-back vibe (deceptively laid-back, of course, as this is a crime film of considerable urgency) with his soundtrack selections, including Bobby Womack's "Across 110th Street" (the theme to an earlier film of the same name) and songs by The Delfonics and The Meters.
I was also pleased at Tarantino's homage to Grier and the '70s, as he plays some Delphonics soundtracks and introduces Pam's appearance in the film with a '70s soundtrack of Bobby Womack singing "Across 110th Street".
Tarantino actually teaches you how to watch “Jackie Brown” during the opening credits, which are initially content to regard former Blaxploitation movie goddess Pam Grier as the title character, gliding along the LAX people-mover made famous by “The Graduate” (and recently on “Mad Men”) to the tune of Bobby Womack’s “Across 110th Street.”
Pam Grier, dolled up for her job as a stewardess for Cabo Air, glides into the right edge of the frame, while Bobby Womack's creamily desperate anthem "Across 110th Street" sets a pristine, hummable stage for both the character and the movie.
In the opening sequence, the camera caresses her as she travels through an airport, and the movie caresses us with the great, lost Bobby Womack song ''Across 110th Street,'' with its ghetto lament about ''doing whatever I had to do to survive.''
Some of the best moments in "Jackie Brown" are when he simply allows his camera to watch her, as she's carried along a moving airport sidewalk while Bobby Womack's "Across 110th Street" plays on the soundtrack or simply as she's sitting enjoying a cigarette.
Like its cinematic compatriots, Shaft (1971), Trouble Man (1972), and Car Wash (1976), Across 110th Street owes much of its notoriety to a memorable theme song.
There’s more and more sensationalistic brutality in shoot-‘n’-knife-em-ups like American International’s Foxy Brown and the indefensible Truck Turner (both 1974).