Street Smart (1987) on Netflix
Reporter Jonathan Fisher needs a story about prostitution for his magazine. The people he approaches ignore him, so he invents a pimp named Tyrone.
- Netflix3.1/5
- IMDb6.4/104,724 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes67%
Trailer
Plot summary
Magazine reporter Jonathan Fisher, in danger of losing his job, promises to write a factual hard-hitting story of prostitution. But when he tries to get information from the subjects, he is ignored. So he ends up faking a well received story of a pimp, describing his life and crimes. But police think the story is of a real life pimp who is wanted for murder and start pressuring him to reveal the identity of subject in his story, and all he knows. The pimp the police suspect, also thinks the story is about himself, and wants to know what Jonathan knows, and who told him.
Cast
- Shari Hiltonas Darlene
- Donna Baileyas Yvonne
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Street Smart (1987)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Screenwriter David Freeman based the script on a hoax of his own: at New York magazine in the late 1960s he fabricated a story about a pimp, published in May 1969 as "The Lifestyle of a Pimp", and only confessed in 1987.
- Cannon's Menahem Golan insisted the film be shot in Canada to cut costs, so Montreal stood in for New York; Shaughnessy Village doubled for Upper Manhattan, and designer Dan Leigh imported Harlem signage, phone booths, mailboxes and garbage.
- Street Smart was a long-time pet project of Christopher Reeve, and he got it made by agreeing to star in Cannon's Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, partly because the studio promised to finance Street Smart in return.
- The New York shoot was picketed over an allegedly non-union crew, and Christopher Reeve, then on the Council of Actors' Equity Association, had to cross the line because of a no-strike clause in his contract.
- A Harlem neighborhood group picketed the production over what it called racial stereotypes in the film; the producers met the group and agreed to hire locals for day jobs on the set.
- Morgan Freeman, Oscar- and Golden Globe-nominated for playing the pimp Fast Black, called it his breakthrough role after his years on The Electric Company, and his favorite of his Oscar-nominated performances.
