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"In the movie Black Caesar I created an Edward G. Robinson look in my character as Tommy Gibbs," explained actor/producer Fred "The Hammer" Williamson during a recent interview when asked how the idea for the film came about. "Edward G. Robinson was a little Caesar and that's why I used this whole concept of robbing from the rich and giving to the poor."
It was a concept audiences ate up. The 1973 MGM movie "Black Caesar" became one of the most successful films to emerge from the blaxploitation genre. The film, directed by Larry Cohen (screenwriter for this year's box office thriller, Phone Booth which featured Colin Farrell)-- catapulted the career of Williamson, a former football player.
"Fred Williamson was a perfect fit to what Hollywood was looking for at the time," said Lawrence Lichty, professor of Radio/Television and Film at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. "He was flamboyant and very attractive. And just like Jim Brown he had successfully made the leap from football into acting and turned out to be a box-office bonanza for Hollywood."
While Richard Roundtree as Shaft, was the black private dick and a sex machine to all the chicks, Williamson held his own on the big screen as the tough, yet ill-fated Harlem gangster in the epic crime drama "Black Caesar".
The film opens with a riveting scene of a young Gibbs as a shoeshine boy, assisting in a Mafia hit in broad daylight. He is beaten by a racist and corrupt cop (played masterfully by Art Lund) who believes Gibbs has stolen money from him. Flash forward a few years and we see a limping Gibbs back on the streets and out for revenge.
Gibbs starts by shooting a white gangster in a barbershop, cuts his ear off and delivers it in person to the mob boss, Cardoza. (Val Avery). The mobster is impressed by Gibbs' style, especially his fluent Italian. Although he's reluctant at first to give Gibbs some Harlem territory to control--after all, not many blacks are in "the family"â??he does. It turns out to be his biggest mistake. Gibbs wants to control of all the ghettos so he can funnel the crime money into legitimate businesses in the black communities. Gibbs and his boys end up picking off the Cardoza clan in dramatic Mafia style. The swimming pool hit is a stunning classic.
Soon Gibbs and his crew are running things in Harlem. They plan to take down all the corrupt politicians and the cop who beat him by getting hold of some incriminating ledgers with names of everyone who is on the take. But fate is not kind to Gibbs. His high flying lifestyle comes to a climatic end.
While Williamson went on to make several highly entertaining and successful films after "Black Caesar," this one is arguably his best work. It also features a great supporting cast including: Gloria Hendry, Julius Harris, Minnie Gentry and D'Urville Martin.
After 30 years, "Black Caesar" holds up exceptionally well as a soul cinema classic.
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