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Way back in the Watergate era, Warner Brothers had been reaping the successes of Uptown Saturday Night (1974), and was only too eager to again tap into the considerable chemistry displayed therein by Sidney Poitier and Bill Cosby and develop another amiable buddy farce targeted to urban audiences. Let's Do It Again (1975), recently released on DVD by Warner Home Video, barely deviates from the structure of the previous film, but the results remain agreeable enough to show that it was worth returning to the well.
The setting this time is inner-city Atlanta, and the dilemma facing milkman Clyde Williams (Poitier) and forklift driver Billy Foster (Cosby) is the pending condemnation of their neighborhood lodge building. Billy's got an audacious scheme for scraping up the payment for a new facility that trades upon Clyde's skill as an amateur hypnotist. They pack their wives off to New Orleans on the pretext of a vacation, which includes taking in a middleweight championship boxing match. The plan involves entrancing the propped-up, long-shot challenger, a gangling patsy named Bootney Farnsworth (Jimmie Walker), into believing he's unstoppable, and placing the lodge's funds on his winning the belt.
Of course, it improbably pays off. Unfortunately, it also gets ultimately figured out by Kansas City Mack (John Amos), the French Quarter ganglord who covered the action on the fight. He has Billy and Clyde dragged back to town so the hapless Bootney can have a few impressive sparring sessions before his rematch, and then be snapped out of it on fight night, when Mack's money is riding on the challenger. The pair answer with another chancy gambit at getting out alive while fooling the heavies.
Today, as well as at the time of their release, various critics have been dismissive of the Poitier/Cosby comedies as warmed-over Amos 'n' Andy draped in polyester, and that's less than fair. They were, and remain, accessible crossover entertainments, that assembled enviable arrays of talented screen performers whose strengths were played to by Poitier as director. The supporting cast here is particularly strong, with Denise Nicholas and Lee Chamberlin as the heroes' plucky wives, Ossie Davis as the lodge elder, Mel Stuart as Bootney's handler, and Calvin Lockhart as Amos' underworld rival. The opening sequences feature brief appearances by George Foreman and Jayne Kennedy as co-workers of Cosby's.
Warner provided an exceptionally clean transfer in its mastering of the DVD, which is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1. The mono audio is likewise clean, but one wishes the familiar Curtis Mayfield/Staple Singers soundtrack had been done better service. The only extra provided is a feature-length commentary by Richard Wesley, the author of the film's screenplay, and by New York Press critic Armond White. Wesley offers plenty of anecdotes regarding the project's development, and White ably sets out the significance of the production in the context of its times.
For more information about Let's Do It Again, visit Warner Video. To order Let's Do It Again, go to
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by Jay S. Steinberg
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