There have been four film adaptations from the crime novels of African-American author Chester Himes who is most famous for his Harlem Detective novels written in the 1950’s through to the end of the 1960’s with one unfinished novel. These adaptations are If He Hollers, Let Him Go (1968 based on Himes first novel) and then three from the Harlem Cycle - Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970), Come Back Charleston Blue (1972) and this film A Rage in Harlem (1991).


None of the Harlem films are able to capture the feel of Himes and I think it would almost be impossible to do so. His Harlem is one of the imagination – vivid, violent, angry and peopled with hookers, pimps, the lost and weary, grifters and drifters, killers and preachers, losers and boozers – and two big nasty black cops who try and keep order with the butts of their guns, a slug in the jaw or a bullet to the stomach. These two are Gravedigger Joe and Coffin Ed Johnson – meanest fuckers in Harlem and everyone knows it. When they want people to line up, they just shoot their guns in the air and yell “Straighten up, Count off”.


Though often not the main characters, their presence runs through all the books like a hot stove. The white man doesn’t enter into these books much unless they are cops or fools, but the white man is what binds all these people together into a bond – you may hate each other but you hate the white man more and the code is to never help a white cop find a black man. Himes books pre-the Harlem Cycle were all about racial injustice but in these he tones that down but it is always right underneath the surface.


Himes was the real deal for these sorts of books. Born in Missouri in 1909 he was trouble from the start – run ins with the law, got into college but was booted out for taking classmates to a brothel and in 1928 was sent to jail for armed robbery. Where he began to write. Not that successfully at first. After WW II like so many blacks looking to get away from racism he became an expatriate in Paris along with James Baldwin and Richard Wright. He was loved in France – they loved Jerry Lewis too – and a French publisher asked him to write a crime novel.


The writing was meant for the French who knew nothing about Harlem other than it is was a haven for jazz – so Himes who had spent some time in Harlem but not a lot figured he could exaggerate things and he did. The books are fun with black humor that permeates the narrative – where death comes hard and fast with no dignity. The plots are all over the place but the books are more about Harlem, about the milieu, the mood, the patter, the streets, the characters.


They are tall tales that 50 years later describe a world that has disappeared and in truth it would certainly be difficult today to make a film that authentically captures Hime’s Harlem because even though coming from an African-American author there is an absurdity and negative connotations about black life that would not go over well any more. In the book that Himes never finished (Pan B) because of his death he planned to kill off Gravedigger and Coffin Joe and have a revolution in the streets.


A Rage in Harlem was Hime’s first in the series, but was initially titled For Love of Imabelle – but A Rage in Harlem certainly would sell more books as a publisher later realized. It is a decent enough film with good performances from Robin Givens, Forest Whitaker, Gregory Hines and Danny Glover – but it feels almost family friendly like they took the book and threw out all the eccentricity, cynicism and weirdness that makes the books so unique. For example in the film Gregory Hines is a handsome charming conman – in the book he impersonates a nun and sells blessings and is hooked on heroin. Givens as Imabelle is a swindler with a sympathetic heart – in the book she is just a hard hearted swindler and part-time prostitute. The Glover character is an invention of the film and I didn't see the point. Whitaker is just a religious naïve man with no life experience – in the book he is numbskull who never figures it out and his stupidity leads to deaths all over.


Imabelle rolls into Harlem in a tight red dress, a trunk of gold and a swath of dead bodies left back in Mississippi. She needs someone though to take her in and spots Jackson (Whitaker) with a big Sucker blazoned across his forehead. A little sex later and he is in love. But three killers Imabelle left behind and hoped were dead show up and shit begins to go down. Jackson goes to his brother (twins in the book) Goldy (Hines) to ask him for help and the gold as a reward. Hines is all in. Coffin Joe and Gravedigger pull their guns but have a smaller role than in the book (the actors are not stars). The film has a much cozier ending than the book – but this is Hollywood.