Harlem crime boss Bumpy Johnson laments the loss of personal service and the rise of corporate monopolies in America shortly before suffering a fatal heart attack. His protégé, Frank Lucas, watches helplessly as the man who mentored him dies in a cold, impersonal department store.
BUMPY: This is the problem. This is what’s wrong with America. It’s gotten so big you can’t find your way. The corner grocery’s a supermarket. Candy store’s a MacDonald’s. And this place. Where’s the pride of ownership here? Where’s the personal service? Does anybody work here? What right do they have cutting out the suppliers, pushing all the middlemen out, buying direct from the manufacturer - Sony this, Toshiba that, all them Chinks - putting Americans out of work?
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