With all of the ingredients of a noir thriller, Clarke’s realist diary of Harlem instead careens through the city streets with an unsensationalized coolness and a heartbreaking, intoxicating rhythm. One of the first movies filmed on location in Harlem and the first feature shot with a handheld 35mm camera, The Cool World reassembles Warren Miller’s novel into an improvised diagram of the internal and external violence riddling Harlem’s complex stratification of race, class and gender. Young Duke concentrates all of his efforts on acquiring a gun—the ultimate symbol of power and control in his chaotic, closed world—and all around him the crime, oppression, prejudice and indoctrination pull him in different directions. Meanwhile, the beauty, camaraderie and hybrid culture of this marginalized melting pot spills over in Clarke’s verité street photography, Mal Waldron and Dizzy Gillespie’s spare, sensitive soundtrack and the remarkable cast of unprofessional actors, many of whom led long careers in film and television after their incendiary debuts. – BG