Greased Lightning

This movie showed the life of one mans adversity in a sport that he loved but not always loved him back. I had the great pleasure of meeting Wendell Scott at a car show in the 80's. He was a very kind hearted man that loved to meet and greet people. I have this movie on tape so that I can show my son when he grows up. It is a great story that every man of any race should see.

I was going to rate this movie a 5/10 or lower based upon the start. It was so absurd.

Wendell Scott (Richard Pryor) was a moonshiner steadily running from the law. He was so good he would always get away from the local sheriff in Danville, Virginia. He was able to parlay his moonshining into NASCAR racing.

That's not the absurd part. What was absurd was that the police knew who he was, knew he was running liquor, yet, for whatever reason, they had to catch him in the act to arrest him. If they couldn't catch him in his car with the booze then they would have to let him go. It was like watching Dukes of Hazard.

But, because the way the movie wrapped up and, more importantly, because Wendell Scott was a real person--I couldn't give it a bad rating in good faith. Pryor, however ill-suited for the role, represented a real black man that really won in NASCAR in the 60's. That's powerful. So, even if the movie was overly dramatized, I have to respect them bringing Wendell Scott to the public.

This one has been a favorite of mine ever since I first watched it on cable in the late 70's. Richard Pryor is just perfect as Wendell Scott, the first black stock-car racing champion. The rest of the cast is great as well, all perfect in their roles. This is definitely a perfectly cast film!

The film itself is very decent but does have a few problems, most notably that once Wendell starts racing there seems to be too many large gaps in time, as if a lot of footage that has been left on the cutting room floor. But the script does move along well even with that problem.

I would think Pryor fans especially would pick this up on DVD if it ever got a proper release, in widescreen, some commentary, and with those obviously deleted scenes left behind. Hopefully this will be on DVD before some Hollywood clown remakes this with tons of computer effects crap and ruins the whole thing.

This movie showed that. Nothing can hold you down. Not even color. Wendell Scott showed what a person can do. When the backs and prejudiced are up against the wall. I'm so proud of him I dont know what to do. I can view this movie over and over again.

Whenever you think about influencial people in African-American sports history, you mostly think of Jackie Robinson, but during the Civil Rights movement of the late 1950's and early 1960's, a young racer from Danville, VA quietly broke NASCAR's color barrier and that was Wendell Scott. I think Richard Pryor did an excellent job of portraying Wendell Scott in this film and showed what is was like to race in the South at that time (1950's-1960's). This film shows that anyone can do anything, regardless of their ethnic background. The real Wendell Scott's racing career was cut short due to a serious accident during a race in Talladega, Alabama in 1973. Where would some of today's African-American racing drivers be if Wendell Scott did not open the door? A must-see for racing fans in general.