Watch The Cotton Club online, or on DVD (1984)

The Cotton Club

1984

Overall rating: 3 out of 5

from 1080 members

Combining electric song and dance performances with drama (both on and off screen), Francis Ford Coppola's The Cotton Club (1984) looks back to the 1920s-1930s peak of the legendary Harlem nightclub where only blacks performed and only whites could sit in the audience. Mixing historical figures with characters loosely based on actual people, Coppola and co-writers William Kennedy and The Godfather's Mario Puzo create a panorama of love, crime, and entertainment centered on the Club. Among them are cornet player Dixie Dwyer (Richard Gere, playing his own solos), who escapes psycho gangster benefactor Dutch Schultz (James Remar) for a George Raft-type Hollywood career as a gangster film star; Schultz's nubile mistress Vera Cicero (Diane Lane), who loves Dixie against her mercenary instincts; Cotton Club Mob owner Owney Madden (Bob Hoskins) and close associate Frenchy Demarge (Fred Gwynne); Vincent (Nicolas Cage), Dixie's no-good Mad Dog Coll-esque brother; Club tap star Sandman Williams (Gregory Hines), who woos ambitious light-skinned Club singer Lila Rose Oliver (Lonette McKee); and cameos by Charles Honi Coles and Cab Calloway impersonator Larry Marshall. Complementing the period story, Coppola evokes the style of '30s gangster movies and musicals through an array of old-fashioned devices like montages of headlines, songs and shoot-outs. Conceived by producer Robert Evans as his crowning achievement and directorial debut, Evans had to hand over the troubled production to Coppola, but the budget spiraled out of control as the script was repeatedly re-written throughout the chaotic shoot. By the time it was released, The Cotton Club's epic production story of power struggles, financial bloat, and even a murder overshadowed the reunion of The Godfather's creative team. Neither a Heaven's Gate-sized failure nor a wallet-saving hit like Coppola's Apocalypse Now, The Cotton Club got some favorable critical notices (although it drew fire for subordinating the African American stories). It did not, however, find a large enough audience to justify its expense and controversy, becoming another mark against 1970s auteur cinema in increasingly blockbuster-driven 1980s Hollywood.~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

The Cotton Club details

Formats:	15 DVD, LOVEFiLM Instant
Starring:	Diane Lane, Gregory Hines, James Remar, Laurence Fishburne, Laurence Fishburne, Fred Gwynne, Nico, Gwen Verdon, Nicolas Cage, Tom Waits, Julian Beck, Allen Garfield, Lisa Jane Persky, Lonette McKee, Bob Hoskins, Richard Gere, Jennifer Grey
Director:	Francis Ford Coppola
Genres:	Drama - General, Music/Musical - Music - Rock/Pop
Studio:	ELEVATION
Collections:	HD Films, Nicolas Cage on Instant, Nicolas Rage!

Title	Runtime	Certificate
The Cotton Club	2hrs 3 mins	15

LOVEFiLM Instant Information

Run time:	2 hours 3 minutes
Rental release:	To be confirmed

Name	Discs
The Cotton Club	15 Feature

DVD Information

Run time:	2 hours 3 minutes
Rental release:	08 Sep 2003
Main languages:	English

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Most helpful review The Cotton Club

Gere, Gangsters and tap-dancing

By a customer from London , 22 Jul 2004

[Highly rated reviewer]

This semi-musical sees Gere as a musician in 20s America who gets mixed up with gangsters when he falls for the wrong woman. There's a great subplot with a pair of tap-dancing brothers, but ultimately this film doesn't seem to know what it really wants to do. Definitely worth seeing if you like musicals of the type where people don't just spontaneouly break into song, or if you liked Chicago, but only really for the Gere factor.
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ALL THAT JAZZ

By a customer , 10 Sep 2012

This is one of my favourite movies!!! As a big fan of all things 1920's, this is sexy fun stylish as well as being full of actors and actresses who weren't really known yet.

Its the lighter side of a darker era, more about the jazz and the characters stories than the violence and racism that happened in the 20's era. Some may find it tacky or lacking in quality, but i think its simply fabulous.

The outfits, the dancing and the general feel of the film is wonderful. I know every song, every line of the movie and also every characters name lol :-)

Can't really compare to any other film except maybe Hoodlum, but that's the darker side to the 1920's, the gangs the money and the racism between not only blacks/whites, but also the Italians as well.

Not a disappointing film by any means, worth watching if you like jazz or that era, or simply if you want to see Nicholas Cage and Richard Gere at their handsome stages
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Pick a bale a cotton

By a customer from Doncaster , 15 Oct 2010

An attempt to portray the famous Cotton Club in New York's Haarlem in the 1930's. Worth seeing for the tap dancing alone. They squandered $20M on this film and produced a very average movie. Some fine actors like Bob Hoskins, Fred Gwynne, and Gwen Verdon were wasted.
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Good fun...

By JimiTheSaint (61 reviews) from London , 26 Apr 2009

With plenty of 'LOOK WHO IT IS!' moments. reccomended.
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Not authentic

By a customer from London , 07 Jan 2009

I failed to appreciate this movie. Having seen the wonderful 'Hoodlum' recently, I wanted to delve further into the genre. Firstly the movie is miscast. Richard Gere and Nicholas Gage don't belong in this film. It could have taken with others. Secondly the Cotton Club was a mostly 'black' venue standing as it does in Harlem. The leads and assortments should have been black.
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not bad

By a customer from blackpool , 28 Nov 2006

the movie was great sound music overall not bad at all
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