‘Godfather of Harlem’ Mixes Fact and Fiction with Flair

By ROB PATTERSON

Yeah, it’s kind of strange and perhaps a bit contradictory for a progressive to be so taken with mobster films and TV shows. Blame “The Godfather” and “The Sopranos,” both among the finest American movies and series if not, some would insist, the best ever. Plus the fact that ongoing criminal enterprises are just so juicily rife with dramatic dimensions and colorful characters.

The high bar set by those visual entertainment landmarks is close to met by the series “The Godfather of Harlem.” Its cast that plays real-life people is superb, starting with the masterful Forrest Whittaker shining as Bumpy Johnson, a Black crime boss who returns to Harlem following a long stretch in Alcatraz in the early 1960s as the series begins. Vincent D’Onofrio plays Genovese Mafia family crime boss Vincent “The Chin” Gigante with fitting oddball charm alongside such mob movie veterans as Paul Sorvino (as Frank Costello) and Chazz Palminteri (Joe Bonnano); another familiar face is crafty character actor Luis Guzmán.

Giancarlo Esposito brims with oily charm and zesty ambition as longtime Harlem congressman, preacher and fixer Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Another performance that wows me is how Australian actress Lucy Fry goes full-on NYC Italian American girl as Stella Gigante, Chin’s (fictional) daughter (as an ex-New Yorker, I know what the real deal is like and Fry nails it). Other superbly-played portrayals of historical figures include Malcolm X, the boxer back then known first as Cassius Clay, Nation of Islam founder Elijah Muhammad and socialite/heiress Amy Vanderbilt.

Taking liberties with the historical record often gets up my nose. Each and every episode of this series begins with a fairly broad and comprehensive disclaimer about the show’s mashup of factual and real with fictional. But “Godfather of Harlem” does so with such flair and finesse that I’m happy to set reality aside as I watch it. For instance, the real Frank Costello had managed the near impossible feat of more or less retiring from the Mafia before this show’s story even begins after an assassination attempt by the actual Vinnie the Chin, who was never headquartered, as best I know, in the Italian-American enclave in East Harlem.

But no matter … The creators and writers swirl all these characters and other prominent and pivotal figures through what one might call a speculative historical fiction story that is immediately engaging and continues to hold the viewer in its intricate web of characters and actual historical events and settings like the Civil Rights Movement and the 1963 March on Washington and Clay’s defeat of Sonny Liston to win the Heavyweight Champion belt followed by his conversion to Islam and new name of Muhammad Ali, the 1963-64 New York World’s Fair, to name some but hardly all.

The events and this show’s characters’ part in them feels real. And that’s underscored by the best TV series evocation of its historical time since “Mad Men,” set in the same era. The fashions, mannerisms, furnishings and settings, cars and street scenes are as I knew them in those years that I was coming of age. (And what feels a a bit weird to me at the age I am now is how it all feels like long ago and vastly different from the world we’re in now.)

It’s well-done television with cinematic qualities for smart people with a sense of recent history and culture, at least those who don’t find the Mafia and crime – the heroin trade is the economic engine of the plot – and some violence objectionable as entertainment. As an ex-Manhattanite, the show is like catnip to me, and the way it unfolds makes it exceptionally binge-worthy. And as much as many of its main characters do bad things, there’s the very real-life contradictions and hypocrisies. Bumpy Johnson may be searching out the best heroin – called “doojee” here in slang – to flood the ghetto with, but at the same time he is generous in the aid he gives to certain individuals and the Harlem community.

Skillful direction and editing – especially a few key historical and plot events intercut into clever back and forth montages – round out this show that encourages my faith that the new Golden Age of TV hasn’t died quite yet and is still producing masterworks. Mixing history with fiction is a risky move, but “Godfather of Harlem” does it with such imaginative savvy that one almost wishes it was true.

Populist Picks

TV Comedy Special: “Selective Outrage” by Chris Rock: That slap at the Oscars from Will Smith – which Rock finally comments on publicly here – seems to have knocked Rock off his game. His latest standup special feels tame and lame in comparison to his previous ones, eliciting chuckles rather than the insightful hilarity he delivered in the past. Still worth a watch if you are OK with not being wowed by one of the great comics of our time.

Documentary Film: “Chuck Leavell: The Tree Man” – A refreshingly different rock doc about a refreshingly different musician who is far more than a fine keyboard player whose distinctive sound and style has enhanced popular music since he joined the Allman Brothers Band in 1972 and later with notables like Eric Clapton, George Harrison, David Gilmour and many more as well as, most notably, principal keyboardist with The Rolling Stones since 1982. He’s also a tree farmer – named National Outstanding Tree Farmer of the Year in 1999 – environmentalist, author and activist as well as a loving and devoted husband and father. A modest yet brilliant musical talent and man of integrity other rockers would do well to emulate.

Rob Patterson is a music and entertainment writer in Austin, Texas. Email robpatterson054@gmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, April 15, 2023

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