Main Cast: Monty Ross, Donna Bailey, Stuart Smith, Thomas Hicks, Horace Long
Release Year: 1983
Country: US
Run Time: 60 minutes
Plot
Maybe you sweated over a typewriter or word processor when you worked on your master's thesis in college. But Spike Lee attended the film school of New York University (under the tutelage of Martin Scorsese, by the way), and was thus required to submit a completed film as his thesis. Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads was filmed in and around Lee's Brooklyn neighborhood. Traces of the controversy and outrageousness of Lee's later feature-length projects will be found herein; it's a fascinating up-close-and-personal look at a black-owned business, and the unvarnished views of a racially polarized society as delivered by the shop's customers and employees. The film won Spike Lee the Student Award of the Motion Picture Academy, setting in motion a still thriving, still dazzling career. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Cast
Monty Ross - Zachariah Homer
Donna Bailey - Ruth Homer
Stuart Smith - Teapot
Thomas Hicks - Nicholas Lovejoy
Horace Long - Joe Ballard
LeVerne Summer - Esquire; Africanus Rocius - Spinks; Robert Delbert - Fletcher; Alphonzo Lewis - Deacon; Christian Campbell - Hanna; William Badgett - Silas; Herbert Burks - True God; Vanita Taylor - Jehovah's Witness; Lynn Dummett - Jehovah's Witness; Loretta Craggett - model; Curtis Brown - photographer; Ahmad Carson - Squeeze; Carolyn Laws - Ms. Maxwell; Eric Wilkins - Man by Elevator
The film is set in a Bed-Stuy barbershop where customers come to hang out, discuss various issues and maybe get a haircut. The manager, Zack, took over after Joe was killed by a gangster who used the shop as a front for a numbers racket. Zack wants to keep the shop legitimate but the gangster wants to continue the deal he had with Joe.
