Detroit 9000

Detroit 9000 is a 1973 American cult film directed by Arthur Marks from a screenplay by Orville H. Hampton. Originally marketed as a blaxploitation film, it had a resurgence on video 25 years later.

Plot

Street-smart white detective Danny Bassett (Alex Rocco) teams with educated black detective Sgt. Jesse Williams (Hari Rhodes) to investigate a theft of $400,000 at a fund-raiser for Representative Aubrey Hale Clayton (Rudy Challenger).

Filming

Actor Alex Rocco was cast as a result of director Arthur Marks' positive experience working with him on their 1973 film Bonnie's Kids.

The movie was shot on location in downtown Detroit and close-in neighborhoods. A number of now demolished landmark buildings can be seen including the J.L. Hudson Company, and the Fort Street Terminal train station. Fort Street Station was already closed when filming was taking place and the approach tracks to the station were used for a chase scene. The now restored Book Cadillac Hotel was used in the reception scenes, including the hotel's famed crystal ballroom. Although the hotel closed in 1983 and sat dormant for over 20 years, it was restored and reopened by the Westin Hotel group in 2009. Although Detroit suffered from race rioting in July 1967, and the riots are referred to in the movie, the film avoided showing areas that still showed signs of heavy damage from the rioting.

Detroit

Detroit (/dᵻˈtrɔɪt/) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan, the fourth-largest city in the Midwest and the largest city on the United States–Canada border. It is the seat of Wayne County, the most populous county in the state. Detroit's metropolitan area, known as Metro Detroit, is home to 5.3 million people, making it the fourteenth-most populous metropolitan area in the United States and the second-largest in the Midwestern United States (behind Chicago). It is a major port on the Detroit River, a strait that connects the Great Lakes system to the Saint Lawrence Seaway. The City of Detroit anchors the second-largest economic region in the Midwest, behind Chicago, and the thirteenth-largest in the United States.

Detroit is the center of a three-county urban area (population 3,734,090, area of 1,337 square miles (3,460 km²), a 2010 United States Census) six-county metropolitan statistical area (2010 Census population of 4,296,250, area of 3,913 square miles [10,130 km²]), and a nine-county Combined Statistical Area (2010 Census population of 5,218,852, area of 5,814 square miles [15,060 km²]). The Detroit–Windsor area, a commercial link straddling the Canada–U.S. border, has a total population of about 5,700,000. The Detroit metropolitan region holds roughly one-half of Michigan's population.