Yaphet Kotto Quote of the Month: December 2004

I regret to inform you that this will be the last Yaphet Kotto Quote of the Month entry. If I were to do it for another year, I'd be revisiting the same movies over and over again. Instead, since I originally used this feature to showcase a little known yet great actor, I will be changing to another actor in the new year for my Quote of the Month. As to who that actor will be, well, you'll have to tune in January 1st to find out.

For my last Kotto Quote I have chosen one of his few starring roles and a great unknown movie in its own right. "Across 110th Street" is a crime drama that matches a young black cop, Lt. Pope (Kotto) with an older white cop, Capt. Mattelli (Anthony Quinn) in order to investigate the murder of some mobsters and theft of a large sum of their money. In essence, it's "In The Heat of the Night" mixed with a blaxploitation film which didn't descend to camp (even with the presence of Antonio "Huggy Bear" Fargas in the cast). By the way, if the title sounds familiar, the title song was used in the beginning and end credits of Quentin Tarantino's "Jackie Brown".

There's a scene where Kotto comes into an interrogation room and finds Quinn beating the crap out of a suspect, who's laid out on the floor bleeding and unconscious. Here's the quote:

Lt. Pope: This kind of thing went out with prohibition. You can't go around belting people.

Capt. Mattelli: Look! I'm sick and tired of your liberal b*llsh*t! You better make up your mind: Are you a cop or one of them social workers?

Lt. Pope: ALL RIGHT, CAPTAIN! Go back to 1940! Pull out the powderkeg; blow up the whole g*dd*mn community!

Capt. Mattelli: Look, the way I work gets results.

Lt. Pope: (motioning towards suspect) I don't hear him saying a g*dd*mn thing.