Five on the Black Hand Side is a 1973 African-American comedy film based on the 1969 play of the same name by Charlie L. Russell.

[3] The film's tagline was: "You've been coffy-tized, blacula-rized and super-flied – but now you're gonna be glorified, unified and filled-with-pride... when you see Five on the Black Hand Side."

Mrs. Brooks is tired of everybody treating her "like an old couch" and decides to leave her husband if he does not change his abusive behavior.

Gideon camps on the roof, instead, where he practices martial arts (by that time an important element of the Black Power movement).

Mr. Brooks finally changes his behavior and all the family members gather at Gail's and her new husband Marvin's "African" wedding.

The relationship between the parents in this movie was parodied in a skit of the same name on the comedy series In Living Color.

It was Russell's first Off-Broadway play, which was produced by American Place Theatre and directed by Barbara Ann Teer.

First, Russell only worked out a draft, but had to finish the script when he met Luther James, a member of the Harlem Writers Guild.

Together with his younger brother Bill Russell, the future Boston Celtics Hall-of-Famer, he experienced "harassment from local police, one of whom once ordered their mother to go home and remove the 'white woman' dress she was wearing, and threats from local businessmen, including a frightening moment at a gas station when the white owner held a shotgun to their father's face because he was going to leave rather than 'wait his turn' while one white customer after another was helped before him.

Preston, a young barber, is also on their side and calls Mr. Brooks a “museum negro” for his conservative opinions.

Joining the civil right movement along with her children and admitting her African roots give Mrs. Brooks strength to stand up to her husband.

Despite this, her daughter Gail in the end of the movie enters into an unequal marriage, in which her husband is the head of the family.

[7] The so called second wave feminists, according to Shelly Eversley and Michelle Habell-Pallán, fought to shape new standards "for thinking about gender, sexism, racism, sexuality, reproductive rights, religion, labor, colonialism, technology, art, music, and the environment".

Mrs. Brooks then joins her younger son in a civil rights movement waiting for her husband to accept the list of demands, otherwise she is determined to leave him.

As Harris wrote, "if the wife can invade this domain, and come out unharmed, she has a chance of changing John Henry's attitudes at home".

But by tickling the funny bone, Charlie L. Russell's adaptation of his Off Broadway play is a good deal more effective than most of the militant and violent so-called black films that are getting redundant.

"[11] Weiler continues, "Mr. Russell's script may be a basically lightweight affair, but he writes with an affection and keen perception that make his people and the issues, couched either in jive talk or straight dialogue, three dimensional and pertinent.

Credit for the giggles and truths is also due Oscar Williams, who directed with professional feeling for pace and comedy.

In 1973, the Institute of International Education provided him with a grant to study African rituals and ceremonies in Nigeria for a period of three months.