Movie. This was on TCM yesterday, and I found this scene puzzling, so apparently I missed something.
If you haven’t seen it, I’ll try to set it up:
Jeff Gerber (Godfrey Cambridge), who is still white, is the customer. Mantan Moreland is the “counterman” at the diner. Cambridge is yuckin’ it up with Moreland, making a number of jovial, but racist, comments (like “you know, two hours later, all of you look alike!”). Moreland laughs along with it, and repeats it sorta, “we all look alike.”
During the conversation, Moreland answers a phone call, and the conversation is a very curt, and emphatic, “Hello? No! Goodbye!” That’s it.
So. . . what was the relevance? The only thing I can think of is that Moreland was really agitated by Cambridge’s comments, and took it out on the hapless caller, before returning to his ear-to-ear grinning “Yowzah, Boss!” demeanor, which he maintains for most of the time he’s talking to Cambridge.
Also, later, after Cambridge turns Black, he doesn’t speak to him in that manner. He just speaks to him as one person speaking to another, so I’m guessing the idea is that he uses the counter shtick only when talking to Whites.
I looked up the movie on IMDB, and basically just found I’m not the only one who was puzzled by it.