![]() After an initial rocky start with him, Hutch becomes a friend and partner to Wendell and Woodrow. His moonshine-running career is over, and his racing career has begun, with the help of volunteer mechanic Woodrow (Richie Havens).īy now, it’s 1955, which we learn from a race announcer, and Wendell, Peewee and Woodrow are struggling against Deep Southern racism and trying to get into the racing business. Though that race doesn’t go well for Wendell – he barely finishes after he is forced off the track into the woods by local greaser Hutch (Beau Bridges) – he does survive. The local racetrack owner has another idea for the sheriff: put Wendell Scott on the track, allowing the local good ol’ boys to go after him, to draw some heavy ticket sales from both whites and blacks. ![]() Barricaded into the small downtown, Wendell is taken to jail on Easter. The police have him set up, using another black moonshine runner who has gotten caught. Years have gone by, his kids are growing up, and though he no longer needs the money, it’s what he does. With just a little bit of Brer Rabbit trickery, the pair outsmart the local yokels.Įventually, though Wendell does get caught. Wendell and Peewee evade them over and over for years, and given the stupidity of the small force, we know why. The moonshine brewers that Wendell picks up from are dirty-faced, overall-wearing, rifle-toting hicks, and the buffoonish sheriffs are only slightly more sinister than Boss Hogg and Roscoe P. Here, we start to get into the absurd stereotypes of rural Southern whites. Married to Mary and frustrated by his inability to make a living driving a taxi in small-town Georgia, Wendell takes to running moonshine with Peewee (Cleavon Little). Once inside, he quickly steals the girl of his dreams, Mary (Pam Grier) from another pal (Julian Bond), and makes it clear to her that he has no intention of getting a job at the mill like everyone else. He gets off the bus, kisses his mother like a good Southern boy should, and heads to the house, where a surprise party is waiting for him. This little scene sets up much of the movie’s plot, which involves racing, road blocks, and racism.Īfter the credits roll, a grown-up Wendell Scott – now played by Richard Pryor – comes home to Danville, Georgia in 1947, after his military service is over. Chided by a white bully, young Wendell agrees to the contest, and of course he wins. He and his pal Peewee are riding along, minding their own business, when they encounter a group of white boys blocking the road. ![]() Scott’s story begins with a quaint prelude to his racing days, told through an bike-racing episode when he was a boy presumably in the late 1920s. ![]() Made about the same time and in the same style as Smokey and the Bandit (1977) and TV’s Dukes of Hazzard (1979 – 1985), Greased Lightning tells the story of Wendell Scott, the first black stock car-racing star. Even though you wouldn’t think of a Richard Pryor movie from the late 1970s being rated PG, this one is- and it’s pretty clean. Starring Richard Pryor and Beau Bridges, the movie also features Pam Grier and Cleavon Little, with lesser roles played by Civil Rights icon Julian Bond and singer-songwriter Richie Havens. You couldn’t ask for a better cast than the one in 1977’s Greased Lightning. ![]()
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