Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads

Source catalog description

This description refers to material held by Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Visual details below describe the original material.

An independent film with the title Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads. It consists of a single reel of color 16mm acetate film with optical sound. The film, which is famed director Spike Lee's first feature film, was submitted as his thesis while attending New York University's filmmaking master's program, and features a musical score composed by his father, Bill Lee. It tells the story of a barbershop owner who must decide whether to make a deal with a local gangster in order to keep his shop open. When Joe (Horace Long), a barbershop owner and numbers game racketeer, robs local gangster Nicholas Lovejoy (Tommy Redmond Hicks), he is tied to cinderblocks and thrown into Manhattan's East River. The barbershop's manager, Zach Homer (Monty Ross) inherits Joe's barbershop after the homicide. However, he struggles to retain customers with the cessation of the illegal numbers game.

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