Across 110th Street (1972)

Sometimes a movie will bring you right back to where you were emotionally when you first saw it. I watched Across 110th Street yesterday- a film that came out the year I turned twenty-one. Let me tell you, my twenties were some of the worst years of my life. In fact, most of that decade is a blur as I was wrapped in a cloud of fear, anxiety, and depression. I now know those feelings were a combination of post traumatic stress and hormones. My mother suffered from clinical depression and I now see that I was in the middle of my own bout with it at the time.

When the film began, with its shots of the dirty streets of New York, I unconsciously breathed deeply and then let out a long sobbing sigh. Was it because those bleak streets reminded me just how bleak my own soul was at the time? Probably. Then Bobby Womack started singing the movie's theme song and my soul lifted. Across 110th Street was a hit on the radio at the time reaching 19th on the Billboard charts. I forgot that the movie version of the song is different from the radio version so listening to it again was like hearing it for the first time.

Across 110th Street is a perfect example of an early 1970's movie; earnest, paranoid, gritty and cynical. The cops are crooked, the whites are racists, the black men either victims, pimps or drug lords. The black women in the movie fair no better being portrayed as either victims or whores. The movie is violent, although it was missing a gory scene that I remember well, with the violence undercut by copious amounts of very, very fake blood. The other thing I noticed is that no one said the word Motherfocker or use any other swear words. This lack of "reality" did not diminish the impact of the movie one bit.

I want to close this post with examples of both versions of Bobby Womack's Across 110th Street. The first is the film version and I could only find that in this 10 minute clip of the movie. The opening of the movie is violent so you may want to stop watching after the credits end.




This second video is a recording of the radio version of Across 110th Street. If you listen to both interpretations of the song I guarantee you will never read or hear the words Across 110th Street without automatically singing them.

I was the third brother of five
Doing whatever I had to do to survive
I'm not saying what I did was all right
Trying to break out of the ghetto was a day to day fight

Been down so long, getting up didn't cross my mind
I knew there was a better way of life and I was just trying to find
You don't know what you'll do until you're put under pressure
Across 110th Street is a hell of a tester.

Across 110th Street
Pimps trying to catch a woman that's weak
Across 110th Street
Pushers won't let the junkie go free.
Across 110th Street
Woman trying to catch a trick on the street
Across 110th Street
You can find it all in the street

I got one more thing I'd like to tell y'all about, right now
Hey brother, there's a better way out
Snorting that coke, shooting that dope, man, you're copping out
Take my advice, it's either live or die
You've got to be strong, if you want to survive

The family, on the other side of town
Would catch hell, without a ghetto around
In every city you find the same thing going down
Harlem is the capital of every ghetto town

Across 110th Street
Pimps trying to catch a woman that's weak
Across 110th Street
Pushers won't let the junkie go free.
Across 110th Street
A woman trying to catch a trick on the street
Across 110th Street,
You can find it all in the street
Yes you can

Look around you, just look around you,
Look around you, look around you, uh yeah