Uptight
The Cancer of Betrayal
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1h 44m
Uptight (also known as Up Tight!) is a 1968 American drama film directed by Jules Dassin. It was intended as an updated version of John Ford's 1935 film The Informer, based on the book of the same name by Liam O'Flaherty, but the setting was transposed from Dublin to Cleveland. The soundtrack was performed by Booker T. & the MG's. The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. is used as a backdrop for the film's fictional narrative.
In Cleveland, Ohio, at the time of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., protesters riot in the streets. Johnny Wells (Max Julien), a charismatic black revolutionary, leads a group of black men on a mission to steal guns from a warehouse as preparation for violent racial conflict. Johnny's best friend Tank (Julian Mayfield), who formerly worked at the steel mill with several of the men, is supposed to help with the robbery, but when the group goes to his house, they find him drunk and watching the television coverage of King's funeral. Tank is a middle-aged, unemployed alcoholic who supported King's non-violent approach, which the others have rejected in favor of violent revolution. It is later revealed that Tank lost his longtime job at the steel mill when he attacked a white co-worker who harassed the black mill workers. As a result, Tank was sent to prison and since being released, has been unable to find work. The black revolutionary group is going through a deeper radicalization, and they see Tank's inconsistent behavior as threatening to their cause.
"Jules Dassin's "Up Tight" is a forthright treatment of black militancy. Somewhat to my surprise, it doesn't chicken out. There's no backsliding, toward a conciliatory moderate conclusion. The passions and beliefs of black militants are presented head-on, with little in the way of comfort for white liberals. White racists, I guess, will be horrified beyond measure. Good for them.
The blacks in the audience at the Roosevelt applauded "Up Tight" as a film that said something for them. It had nerve enough to portray the anger of the ghetto. Here was a movie in which the blacks are really black, and act and think like it, instead of masquerading as special cases like Sidney Poitier, the Nobel Prize winner. It's remarkable that a major studio (Paramount) financed and released this film. Perhaps its success will make it possible for other movies to consider the American reality."
- Roger Ebert, Feb 1969
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