Uptown Saturday Night

An efficient enough comedy in which Poitier directs himself as straight man to Cosby's slightly demented taxi driver. The film takes off from the first night of their vacation, when a winning lottery ticket is stolen and their attempts to retrieve it involve them in a movie fantasy world of gangsters. Radiating professionalism rather more than inspiration, it boils down to the sum of its star turns, and with the exception of a fairly nauseous opening sequence sketching in Poitier's 'happy marriage', emerges not unlikeably. Calvin Lockhart etches a neat thumb-nail sketch of a ghetto gangster; Belafonte takes off Brando's Godfather; Roscoe Lee Browne adds a touch of acid to his portrayal of a black congressman. But it's Richard Pryor's fleeting yet totally three-dimensional Sharp Eye Washington, a perspiring and achingly nervous phony private eye, who really walks away with the honours.