Plainsclothes cops “Coffin” Ed Johnson (Raymond St. Jacques) and Gravedigger Jones (Godfrey Cambridge) hunt for a celebrity preacher (Calvin Lockhart) and cash scammed from the Harlem community for his “Back To Africa” movement, which has been stolen by white supremacists and stuffed into a bale of cotton that’s fallen into the hands of a local junk peddler (Redd Foxx, who made his film debut here at age 48).

Directed by Ossie Davis with a script he adapted with Arnold Perl from the Harlem Domestic detective novel by Chester Himes, Cotton Comes To Harlem was one of the first studio films with a Black director.

If any other film bares resemblance to this one it would be Rush Hour, a cop action comedy with two-dimensional characters, wild plot twists and a cartoon style. In one scene, a white cop is talked out of his clothes by the preacher’s flame (Judy Pace) and then stumbles after her buck naked down a corridor with a sack over his head. This material would appear an odd choice for Davis, a dignified figure of stage, screen and the civil rights movement.

But like all good detective yarns, Himes uses a lurid, ultimately ridiculous crime to comment on society, poking fun at Black nationalists, White racists and inept cops. He riffs on The Maltese Falcon – with the sought after cotton turning out to be worthless – and writes rapid fire exchanges straight from Howard Hawks.

These kinds of multilayered black comedy/crime novels are difficult to adapt to screen (witness Elmore Leonard or Carl Hiaasen’s filmography). If the satire is leaned on too heavily, they can play mean or bitter. If the satire is taken out, they can play silly. Cotton Comes To Harlem would fall into the latter category.

The movie is hectic, juvenile – Davis seems to enjoy filming characters flying through the air – and doesn’t have a brain in its head. All of that would be okay, but Davis is incapable of bringing any real wit or style to the movie. Sidney Poitier & Bill Cosby would revisit this material – the “positive” Blaxploitation flick – memorably with Let’s Do It Again. Davis could have really used them.

St. Jacques and Cambridge – the perfect dirty cops for some other movie – are supposed to hold our attention as the protagonists here and have no chemistry. Despite an appearance by Foxx, Cotton Comes To Harlem lacks the terrific cast of the Poitier & Cosby buddy movies, and doesn’t even have a memorable theme song to go along with it.