Uptown Saturday Night Poster Original Daybill 1974 Sidney Poitier
Daybill Poster.Uptown Saturday Night is a 1974 American action-comedy crime film written by Richard Wesley and directed by and starring Sidney Poitier, with Bill Cosby, Harry Belafonte and Richard Pryor co-starring. Cosby and Poitier teamed up again for Let's Do It Again (1975) and A Piece of the Action (1977). Although Cosby's and Poitier's characters have different names in each film, the three films are a trilogy. Uptown Saturday Night premiered on June 15,1974 at the Criterion Theatre in New York and opened to positive reviews. Commercially Uptown Saturday Night grossed $7,400,000 in the US, surpassing its production cost of $2,500,000. It was on the list of top 50 highest-grossing films at #3, just three months after its release. Uptown Saturday Night was produced by Warner Bros. during the blaxploitation film era along with films such as Cleopatra Jones and Black Belt Jones. Throughout his career, Poitier was frustrated with Hollywood's portrayal of blacks in film and television, which motivated him to direct films during the blaxploitation era. The first film that he directed was Buck and the Preacher, in which he starred with Belafonte. Poitier sought to represent black actors on screen in an elegant manner in contrast to the usual image of blacks in Hollywood. During his career, he refused roles that enforced negative stereotypes, and chose to play characters who were "dignified, proud, and ethical."