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Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip (film)

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This article is about the film. For the album, see Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip.
Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip
Theatrical release poster
Directed byJoe Layton
Written by
Produced byRichard Pryor
StarringRichard Pryor
CinematographyHaskell Wexler
Edited bySheldon Kahn
Production
companies
Distributed byColumbia Pictures
Release date
  • March 12, 1982 (1982-03-12) (United States)
Running time
82 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$4.5 million[1]
Box office$36,299,720[2] ($118 million in 2024 dollars)[3]

Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip is a 1982 American stand-up comedy film directed by Joe Layton. It stars and was produced by Richard Pryor, who also wrote the screenplay with Paul Mooney. The film was released alongside his album of the same name in 1982, and the most financially lucrative of the comedian's concert films. The material includes Pryor's frank discussion of his drug addiction and the night that he caught on fire while freebasing cocaine in 1980.

Cast

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  • Richard Pryor as himself
  • Gene Cross as Stoned Hippie
  • Julie Hampton as herself
  • Jesse Jackson as himself (audience member, uncredited)

Production

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The film cost $4.5 million of which $3 million went to Pryor.[1]

Topics/ Scenes in order

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  1. Start
  2. Sex
  3. Greed & money
  4. Lawyers
  5. Cool Clothes
  6. Married
  7. Quiet mad
  8. Feelings
  9. Heartbreak
  10. Arizona State Pen
  11. Kidnapping
  12. Nazis
  13. Racist Groups
  14. Ex-Thief
  15. Brothels & pool halls
  16. Hawaii
  17. Racism
  18. The Motherland
  19. N Word
  20. Mafia People
  21. Mudbone
  22. Old Friends
  23. Milk & cookies
  24. Junkie & his pipe
  25. "Fire!"
  26. The hospital
  27. Finding religion
  28. Richard Pryor Jokes

Reception

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Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip has received mixed reviews. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 40% based on reviews from five critics.[4]

Writing in Commentary, conservative reviewer Richard Grenier saw Pryor's performance as embodying, and as forcing White audiences to accept and respect, an urban type that was more authentic than that exemplified by other Black comedians:

. . . Pryor, on stage, plays the very caricature of the irresponsible black man, the embodiment of almost every single stereotypical trait that traditionally consigned him to the bottom of the country's social order. But he transcends the character. We have had Stepin Fetchit and Butterfly McQueen playing seemingly bonafide black idiots. We have had Bill Cosby and Dick Gregory "talking white" to white audiences. (We have even had Flip Wilson and Redd Foxx, amiable but insignificant black comics—neither here nor there.) But Richard Pryor for the first time has taken the “black” character at its socially most regressive, and made us laugh in a new way—as if behind this performance is a high intelligence.[5]

The film grossed $36.3 million, the highest-grossing concert film of all-time until it was surpassed by Eddie Murphy Raw in 1988.[6]

Roger Ebert rated Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip four out of four stars, describing it as a "breathtaking performance" by a comedian who had returned from the brink of self-destruction. He noted Pryor's initial nervousness but observed that, as the performance progressed, Pryor transformed into an "older, wiser, and funnier" version of himself, delivering extraordinary comedy and self-reflection. Ebert highlighted the brilliance of Pryor’s vignettes, including a Mafia nightclub skit and physical comedy inspired by African wildlife, culminating in a final segment he called "one of the most remarkable marriages of comedy and truth I have ever seen." He concluded, "It is good we still have him. He is better than ever."[7]

References

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  1. ^ a b RICHARD PRYOR: AT 41, MAKING A YOU-TURN?: RICHARD PRYOR: SECOND LOOK AT LIFE Lee, Grant. Los Angeles Times 1 Apr 1982: j1
  2. ^ "Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved June 4, 2016.
  3. ^ 1634–1699: McCusker, J. J. (1997). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States: Addenda et Corrigenda (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1700–1799: McCusker, J. J. (1992). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1800–present: Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. "Consumer Price Index (estimate) 1800–". Retrieved February 29, 2024.
  4. ^ "Richard Pryor Live on the Sunset Strip". Rotten Tomatoes. 12 March 1982. Retrieved July 4, 2016.
  5. ^ Richard, "Black Comedy," Commentary, June 1982.
  6. ^ "'Raw' Passes 'Pryor' As Top Concrt Pic". Variety. January 13, 1988. p. 7.
  7. ^ Ebert, Roger (January 1, 1982). "Richard Pryor Live on the Sunset Strip movie review (1982)". RogerEbert.com. Retrieved 2025-01-02.
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