| The Monkey Hustle | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Arthur Marks |
| Produced by | Arthur Marks and Robert E. Shultz |
| Written by | Odie Hawkins and Charles Eric Johnson |
| Starring | Yaphet Kotto Kirk Calloway Rudy Ray Moore |
| Music by | Jack Conrad |
| Cinematography | Jack L. Richards |
| Editing by | Art Seid |
| Distributed by | American International Pictures |
| Release date(s) | 1976 |
| Running time | 90 min. |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
The Monkey Hustle (also written as The Monkey Hu$tle) is a 1976 blaxploitation film written by Odie Hawkins and Charles Eric Johnson. It stars Yaphet Kotto as Chicago con-man and "hustler" Big Daddy Foxx and Kirk Calloway as his teenage apprentice. Co-stars include Thomas Carter, Donn C. Harper, Rudy Ray Moore, and Rosalind Cash.[1]
The film includes a loose plot centered around the ensemble cast of characters in which Foxx mentors "Baby D" (Calloway), "Player" (Carter), and "Tiny" (Harper) in the ways of small-time hustling. An example of a hustle is the boys apparently stealing some televisions from a truck for Foxx in sight of a local shop owner. The boys then steal the televisions from Foxx's truck and stash them in some trash. The shop owner offers the boys $55 cash for the televisions which they accept. However, when the shop owner returns with his dolly, he finds that the boys have run off with the cash as well as the televisions (which were actually empty boxes).
The over-arching plotline is to prevent the construction of an expressway through the neighborhood in which all the characters reside. Using facilities that are not adequately described in the film, Foxx and local numbers man "Glitterin' Goldie" (Moore) use potentially corrupt connections within the city government to prevent the construction.