When a Black robbery crew knock over a collections bank in Harlem, killing three Blacks, two Italians and two cops, the NYPD’s 27^th Precinct assigns old school Capt. Frank Mattelli (Anthony Quinn, who also served as executive producer) to work with the up-and-coming Lt. Pope (Yaphet Kotto) to find the crew before the mob gets them first.

Across 110^th Street effectively pimp slaps every entry in the Blaxploitation genre, from Shaft to Coffy to my sentimental favorite, The Mack. It doesn’t aspire to be a drive-in flick – made for a dollar and making back two – but succeeds impressively as a strong film in every conceivable category, from screenplay, direction, performances, casting and production value.

Adapted by Luther Davis (a former writer for Bob Hope) from a novel by Wally Ferris, the well written story – while violent – eschews mayhem to focus on how a brazen robbery ripples through a community in a twenty-four hour period. Its effects are felt by the disparate robbery crew (Paul Benjamin, Ed Bernard, Antonio Fargas), the cops who investigate, the prostitutes pumped for information, the mob who struggle to retain control over Harlem and by the innocents caught in the crossfire.

The director was Barry Shear, who had one notable feature – the ’60s cult curio Wild In The Streets – to his credit, but had directed thousands of hours of TV, from Hawaii Five-O to Julia to Streets of San Francisco. The movie propels forward with impressive momentum, jumping from bars in Harlem to the 27^th Precinct to dingy tenements to the rooftops over New York. It doesn’t stop for needless exposition or backstory, but manages to give each member of the cast something memorable to do.

The film spends 40 minutes at most with the cops. As played terrifically by Quinn, Mattelli knows every nuance in Harlem. He respects the honest people, but doesn’t hesitate to brutalize the crooks. Kotto’s Lt. Pope is still learning when to go off book, without compromising his ethnics and ending up like the old man. Quinn and Kotto were actors who embodied old school/new school better than any that could have been cast at the time, and are terrific to watch work together.

Paul Benjamin, who would memorably play “corner man” M.L. in Do The Right Thing, stands out as the leader of the robbery crew, a thief with a soul who didn’t want to kill anybody, but isn’t going back to life as a janitor either. Anthony Franciosa almost steals the film as the mob boss’s prick son-in-law, known in Harlem as “a punk errand boy,” who is put in charge of finding the crew and tries to use the appointment to get respect.

Instead of making this a star vehicle for Quinn, the filmmakers instead document Harlem, including things like kids dropping water balloons on the beat cops at the crime scene, with the soaked cop’s partner telling him, “It’s all right, I think it’s just water.” The camera work by Jack Priestly and editing by Carl Pingitore are also first rate, whether following Quinn through a calamitous precinct house as he calms the nerves of the locals, or cutting from a thug being shoved down an elevator shaft to Benjamin’s character waking up in a cold sweat.

Bobby Womack provided the memorable theme song, though the version used for the opening credits of Jackie Brown was much funkier than the remix used here. One other highlight of the film is a scene in the 27^th Precinct basement, where criminal records are accessed in a 1940s-era filing cabinet and laughably outdated even by Pope’s standards in 1972.

The movie lacks any significant female characters. But instead of giving Quinn or Kotto a love interest or home life, this keeps the focus on Harlem and how the robbery’s ripple effect plays across its territory. It works as a character drama, an urban action flick and a social document of the times. If you give one flick in the Blaxploitation genre a gander, Across 110^th Street would definitely be it.