Let's Do It Again

With big changes in the pipeline, I've been sifting my movies and piling up the ones that are past their shelf date. This has been a mostly successful exercise in discernment, with a couple exceptions. Let's Do It Again is one of the standouts, appearing at first glance like a disc I could do without but upon further inspection proving itself invaluable.

Sidney Poitier, concerned in the mid-70's that his public persona was too aloof, produced, directed and starred in three films aimed squarely at regular folks. Up to that point, he had portrayed powerful upright figures that stood for social justice and equality, and far from discarding those values Poitier instead married them to comedy -with devastating results, thanks in no small part to Bill Cosby, then at the peak of his comic genius.

This was the second of the three films Poitier and Cosby did together: Uptown Saturday Night is fine if slow, as is Piece of the Action, but neither has the brilliant invention or timing of Let's Do It Again. You can believe me, too; nobody is more fickle when it comes to comedy than this kid, and if I laugh out loud at a movie it's a special occasion. This one floors me every time. Check out this beautiful scene of Bill Cosby and see what I'm talking about: