1984 - THE COTTON CLUB, Coppola's gangster musical

The version of The Cotton Club is called the encore version but I've seen the original film and there's really not much difference.  Coppola appears to have cut out all the actors playing 1930's celebrities and added more musical numbers.  Other than that it's basically the same film.

Clearly the plan of the producer Robert Evans was to get lighting to strike twice with another gangster epic.  To that end he hired Mario Puzo to write an original story about the famous 1930's Harlem jazz club that was essentially run by white gangsters.  Dissatisfied with Mario Puzo's story, Evans turned to his Godfather director and writer Francis Ford Coppola to rewrite the film and eventually direct it.  Robert Evans must have been really desperate since he and Coppola had feuded a lot during the making of the Godfather films

The film has a notorious backstory involving real life gangsters and murder but lets not get into that here, that story can be easily found all over the internet.  With Coppola in charge the budget shot up and he was able to wrestle final cut away from Evans.  The resulting film is beautiful to look at with the carefully recreated sets and costumes from that era.  The musical numbers are all extremely well done.  If there is an issue with this film it's kind of with the story.

For all the work Coppola and his production team put in on this film the main love stories are rather on the thin side.  Richard Gere is a trumpet player who falls in love with gangster Dutch Schultz's mistress played by a miscast and far to young Diane Lane who was  probably 19 years old when she appeared in the film.  She hardly seems like the tough 1930's broad who falls in love with Gere.  Gregory Hines and his brother Maurice are tap dancers who appear at the Cotton Club and Lonette McKee is a light skinned black woman passing for white who Gregory Hines falls in love with.  This would have made an interesting story line but it's barely touched upon.

 

For all the flaws in the story telling this is a very entertaining film.  Coppola succeeds in mixing the musical numbers with the gangster story line rather well.  As one critic pointed out, in retrospect this film with it's mixed genres was the one he was attempting to make with the disastrous One From The Heart.

The film was written by  Francis Ford Coppola and the novelist William Kennedy, the running time is 139 minutes.