Received a five-minute standing ovation when it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.
Features the policemen Coffin Ed and the Grave Digger, also seen in the previously released Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970) and Come Back Charleston Blue (1972), both from the 1970s. Those films took place in the contemporary 1970s (despite adapting novels written in 1965 and 1966, respectively). However, A Rage in Harlem takes place in the 1950s (when the novel was published).