A SOLDIER'S STORY (1984)

Charles Fuller had but one feature film writing credit (also his sole B’way credit*), and this is it: a whodunnit with a socio-politico angle since the case (the murder of a despised Black Sergeant) involves a Black WWII Unit down South in a still segregated army.  With a hefty glance toward IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT/’67*, the man sent down to take charge of the case is Black, Howard E. Rollins Jr., the first Negro Captain seen by Black grunts or White officers at the Camp.  He even goes head-to-head with a white co-equal, eventually earning grudging respect and even a sort of friendship, just as in HEAT.  And while the mystery, writing & solution never rise above utilitarian (‘Blackness’ always the underlying topic), the film remains enormously entertaining in its way.  The plot, ‘opened up’ thru multiple locations & exposition handled on the move, never shakes off its stage origins; same for some of the actors, murdered officer Adolph Caesar, seen largely in flashback as Rollins interviews suspects, relies entirely on a stage villain’s snarl.  But you’re always pulled along by the basic Agatha Christie mystery structure and the cast is a treat of rising young Black actors in youthful glow.  (Glow is the word since the Southern climate has everyone’s skin glistening.  The continuity girl must have gone crazy trying to match dew levels!)  In only his second film, Denzel Washington is more important than his seventh-billing indicates, and Robert Townsend (where has this charmer been hiding?), also in an early credit, steals every scene he’s in.*  Perhaps with so many Black ensemble films now available, this feels less special than it did at the time.  But director Norman Jewison (a Canadian Episcopalian, BTW), having made HEAT OF THE NIGHT, knows how to make it work.

DOUBLE-BILL: *Rollins, playing the Sidney Poitier character, took Poitier’s role when HEAT went to tv. The original 1967 film is from Poitier's  annum mirabilis: TO SIR WITH LOVE and GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER in addition to HEAT.  All three now historical relics.  OR: See Washington & Townsend nicely paired in THE MIGHTY QUINN/’89, an island-set murder mystery offering similar race issues without on-the-nose lecturing, and Denzel dazzling in regulation police-issued white shorts.

ATENTION MUST BE PAID: *The original 1981 stage run (as A SOLDIER’S PLAY) was Off-B’way.  It only hit B’way in 2020 (with the film’s David Alan Grier moving up to play Sergeant), but shuttered early due Corona-19.