Uptown Saturday Night

Dir. Sidney Poitier. 1974, 104 mins. 35mm. With Sidney Poitier, Bill Cosby, Harry Belafonte. Poitier makes the perfect foil to Bill Cosby’s unhinged funnyman in this freewheeling, smash-hit buddy comedy, the first of their three films together. The duo plays a couple of working stiffs who dive into a criminal underworld of gangsters and crooked politicians to retrieve a stolen, winning lottery ticket. In his first crack at comedy, director Poitier assembles a remarkable, who’s who cast of 1970s black entertainers, including Harry Belafonte, Flip Wilson, and a scene-stealing Richard Pryor as a bogus detective.