THE COTTON CLUB ENCORE (2019)
If you love a period piece, and you love noir or crime drama, have I got a gem for you.
Francis Ford Coppola’s film The Cotton Club was originally released in 1984, but that’s not the movie I’m here to rep. Not until 35 years later did the director’s cut, The Cotton Club Encore, release—and man, what a glorious revision!
But first things first: the original film follows the narrative of Dixie Dwyer (Richard Gere), a jazz cornet player who gets in good with the mob boss Dutch Schultz (James Remar) in late 1920s Harlem, and how Dwyer tries to snake his moll (Diane Lane) while the Dutchman is distracted trying to muscle the policy racket away from the Black people in Harlem.
But The Cotton Club Encore balances that narrative with that of the parallel Williams family, a Black family in the same neighborhood, for whom everything is different, even when the setting is fundamentally the same. Tapdancing and entertaining runs in the family: brothers Sandman and Clay (Gregory and Maurice Hines) try to make it in show business, following in the steps of their father (Henry LeTang), and with their sister (Wynona Smith) hot on their heels—all puns intended.
Dixie and Sandman are fast friends despite their races, so the narrative orbits between them. The viewers get to enjoy their impeccable acts in the styles of Billie Holliday, Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Fats Waller, and Ella Fitzgerald, to name a few. It’s not exactly a musical, but it’s not not a musical, either.
Coppola’s on record saying the complaints back in the 1980s were: “Film’s too long. Too many Black stories. Too much tap dancing. Too many musical numbers.”
I’m here to tell you that all of that feedback is exactly wrong.
Coppola knew it too and, in 2019, “he spent around half a million dollars of his own money to restore the elements he felt pressured to cut.”
One of those restored scenes features the absolutely gorgeous Lila Rose Oliver (Lonette McKee). She sings an incredibly shot rendition of Lena Horne’s “Stormy Weather” that will make you weak. The camera zooms around her and the fans lift her gauzy costume cape, and you turn into that heart eyes emoji.
In Encore, unlike so many films, we not only get to view the spectacle of these bedazzling performances literally—but Encore puts into perspective how the business was so clearly stacked against Black performers. It’s also really cool of Coppola to re-release this (how many times do we see men walk back a decision they made and actually make a real attempt to right it).
Now, in the first scene of Encore, we see the Cotton Club’s Black doorman stop a couple from entering because the woman looks “Colored.” This gatekeeping, by the way, is to a club that features predominately Black performers. The irony is not lost on contemporary viewers: after all, the original release shaved back all the Black stories because that’s what the financiers demanded.
Encore refocuses the attention on them, the true protagonists of the story, by cutting 13 minutes less of the gangster story that “keeps getting in the way” and adding 24 minutes more to rebalance the parallel story of two families trying to make it in Harlem.
By the way, the two families of different races get along with each other fine (at least the younger generations of them)—it’s the moneymakers that perpetuate the prejudice. Life imitates art, et al.
Two of my favorite moments lead into one another. Sandman (Gregory Hines) finds Lila Rose (McKee) at a dance hall where he serenades her in such a charming rendition of “Tall, Tan, Terrific” that no one couldn’t fall in love with him.
They mosey over to the bar together where Henry LeTang (who also choreographed much of the film) tells him he’s in the Hoofers’ Club. And then the old heads—the ones who have been tapping their whole lives—get up and dance with both Williams brothers. It’s just the best thing you could possibly hope for.
And did I mention your man Nic Cage is in it? Yep, he plays Richard Gere’s dumbass little brother whose wife (Jennifer Grey!) won’t wear any clothes. And WHY WON’T SHE? The costumes in this film are absolutely devastating, from the vintage lingerie Diane Lane wears to the spats on Sandman’s tap shoes, you will be pausing the movie to add to cart.
All told, that’s the only reason not to watch The Cotton Club Encore: you’ll have to pause it while you create your new playlist or mix yourself a gin cocktail.
