Let's Do It Again is a 1975 film starring Sidney Poitier and Bill Cosby. Poitier also directed. This was the second film pairing of Poitier and Cosby following Uptown Saturday Night. Cosby and Poitier teamed up again for A Piece of the Action in 1977. Although their characters have different names in each film, the three Poitier-Cosby films are considered to be a trilogy. Calvin Lockhart and Lee Chamberlin also appeared in Uptown Saturday Night as different characters.

Plot

Set in Atlanta, it follows Clyde Williams (Poitier) and Billy Foster (Cosby) as a pair of blue-collar workers who are trying to raise funds for the Brothers and Sisters of Shaka. They decide to rig a boxing match in New Orleans. They use hypnotism to convince Bootney Farnsworth (Jimmie Walker) that he is a highly skilled prize fighter. He fights and wins, and Williams and Foster cleanup after betting on him, the underdog. They return home, and all is fine until the gangsters who lost money betting on the other guy figure out the scam and come to Atlanta, to get the pair to do it again...or be killed.

Unable to enter Farnsworth's training room to hypnotize him again, Williams and Foster decide to bet on the match being a draw, and place bets with both gangster groups. They then enter his opponent's training room and successfully hypnotize him. Both fighters end up simultaneously knocking each other out, and Williams and Foster are able to collect their bets before the gangsters discover what happened.

Cast

• Sidney Poitier — Clyde Williams
• Bill Cosby — Billy Foster
• Calvin Lockhart — Biggie Smalls
• John Amos — Kansas City Mack
• Jimmie Walker — Bootney Farnsworth
• Ossie Davis — Elder Johnson
• Denise Nicholas — Beth Foster
• Lee Chamberlin — Dee Dee Williams
• Mel Stewart — Ellison

When the film premiered, John Amos and Jimmie Walker were starring as father and son in the CBS sitcom Good Times.

Influence in popular culture

The late East Coast rap artist The Notorious B.I.G. took his alias, Biggie Smalls, from Calvin Lockhart's character in this film. However, the alias could not be used as his name due to ownership issues.

Remake

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.

References

External links