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At the age of 29, Elgar Enders (Beau Bridges) "runs away" from home. This running away consists of buying a building in a black ghetto in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn. Initially, his intention is to evict the black tenants and convert it into a posh flat. But Elgar is not one to be bound by yesterdays urges, and soon he has other thoughts on his mind. Hes grown fond of the black tenants and particularly of Fanny (Diana Sands), the wife of a black radical; hes maybe fallen in love with Lanie (Marki Bey), a mixed race girl; hes lost interest in redecorating his home. Joyce (Lee Grant), his mother has not relinquished this interest and in one of the films most hilarious sequences gives her MasterCharge card to Marge (Pearl Bailey), a black tenant and appoints her decorator.
Twenty-nine year old Caucasian Elgar Enders (Beau Bridges) still lives at the estate of his parents, William (Walter Brooke) and Joyce Enders (Lee Grant), and off their vast wealth with their blessing, although his ultra-conservative father hopes that someday Elgar will have some drive and make a name for himself, much as he believes his eldest son, William Jr. (Will Mackenzie), has done. Elgar decides finally to move out, and buys a tenement house in Park Slope, Brooklyn, a rough neighborhood seemingly on the verge of gentrification. He plans to tear it down and build a new house for himself. Although they have no idea of his plans, the tenants of the building, exclusively black, do not welcome their young, lily-white new landlord with open arms. They believe he is just another white slum landlord who wants their money, although most of them are indeed several months behind in their rent. Despite their antagonistic beginning, Elgar, after spending time with his tenants and learning their stories, decides to be a proper landlord and fix up the building for them and for him to live in. Elgars transition into a liberal-minded lover of his black brothers and sisters is not without its problems as he deals with some tenants who are indeed deadbeats, his parents who just dont understand and agree with this phase of his life, and race relations where the color of ones skin does affect how they are treated in life and in turn how they interact with others. The latter is epitomized by his relationships with Lanie (Marki Bey), a biracial woman whom he initially believed was white, and with husband and wife tenants Copee (Louis Gossett Jr.) and Fanny (Diana Sands) to whom he gets a little too close.
Beau Bridges
Elgar
Lee Grant
Mrs. Enders
Diana Sands
Fanny
Pearl Bailey
Marge
Walter Brooke
Mr. Enders
Louis Gossett Jr.
Copee
Marki Bey
Lanie
Mel Stewart
Professor Duboise
Susan Anspach
Susan Enders
Robert Klein
Peter
Will Mackenzie
William Jr.
Gretchen Walther
Doris
Doug Grant
Walter Gee
Stanley Greene
Heywood
Oliver Clark
Mr. Farcus
Florynce Kennedy
Enid
Joe Madden
Grandfather
Grover Dale
Oscar
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