Harlem Nights is a 1989 comedy-drama crime film starring Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor. The film also featured Michael Lerner, Danny Aiello, Redd Foxx, Della Reese and Murphy's brother Charlie Murphy. Murphy and Pryor star as a team running a nightclub in late-1930s Harlem, New York while contending with gangsters and corrupt police officials.
Murphy wrote, and directed the film (Murphy was nominated for Worst Director at the 10th Golden Raspberry Awards, his only directorial effort; the film "won" Worst Screenplay) and served as an executive producer. He had always wanted to direct and star in a period piece, as well as work with Pryor, whom he considered his greatest influence in stand-up comedy. Although Harlem Nights was a critical failure, it was a financial success, grossing 3½ times the amount it cost to make it (worldwide); it is well known for starring three generations of Black-American comedians (Redd Foxx, 1922-1991; Pryor, 1940-2005 & Murphy, 1961- ).
Famous quotes containing the words harlem and/or nights:
“I could take the Harlem night
and wrap around you,
Take the neon lights and make a crown,
Take the Lenox Avenue buses,
Taxis, subways,
And for your love song tone their rumble down.”
—Langston Hughes (1902–1967)
“Autumn hath all the summer’s fruitful treasure;
Gone is our sport, fled is poor Croydon’s pleasure.
Short days, sharp days, long nights come on apace,
Ah! who shall hide us from the winter’s face?
Cold doth increase, the sickness will not cease,
And here we lie, God knows, with little ease.
From winter, plague, and pestilence, good Lord, deliver us!”
—Thomas Nashe (1567–1601)