Story of movie A Piece Of The Action Film : A Piece of the Action is a 1977 American crime comedy film directed by and starring Sidney Poitier and co-starring Bill Cosby. It was the third film pairing of Poitier and Cosby, following Uptown Saturday Night (1974) and Let's Do It Again (1975). The films are considered a trilogy, even though the actors play characters with different names in each film. It was also Poitier's last acting role for more than a decade, as he focused his attentions on directing only.
| A Piece of the Action | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Sidney Poitier |
| Produced by | Melville Tucker |
| Screenplay by | Charles Blackwell |
| Story by | Timothy March |
| Starring | Sidney Poitier Bill Cosby James Earl Jones Denise Nicholas Hope Clarke Tracy Reed Titos Vandis |
| Music by | Curtis Mayfield |
| Cinematography | Donald M. Morgan |
| Edited by | Pembroke J. Herring |
Production company | First Artists |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
Release date | October 7, 1977 |
Running time | 135 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Screenplay
Dave Anderson (Cosby) and Manny Durrell (Poitier) are two high-class sneak thieves who have never been caught. Joshua Burke (Jones) is a retired detective who has enough evidence on the both of them to put them behind bars. Instead, he offers to maintain his silence if the crooks will go straight and do work at a youth center for delinquents. At first, the crooks are reluctant and unwilling (and so are the kids). As time goes by they gain the trust and admiration of the kids and they start to enjoy the job. All goes well until a past heist comes back to haunt them and they have to make up for it or else.
- Sir Sidney Poitier as Manny Durrell
- Bill Cosby as Dave Anderson
- James Earl Jones as Joshua Burke
- Denise Nicholas as Lila French
- Hope Clarke as Sarah Thomas
- Tracy Reed as Nikki McLean
- Titos Vandis as Bruno
- Frances Foster as Bea Quitman
- Jason Evers as Ty Shorter
- Marc Lawrence as Louie
- Ja'net Dubois as Nellie Bond
- Sheryl Lee Ralph as Barbara Hanley
- Ernest Lee Thomas as John
- Estelle Evans as Alberta Ballard
In 2002, it was announced that Will Smith and his production company, Overbrook Entertainment, had secured the rights to the trilogy for remakes to star Smith and to be distributed by Warner Bros.. Smith stated that he hoped to get Eddie Murphy, Martin Lawrence and other famous African-American stars to be in the films.
