The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings

They just don't make `em like this anymore. James Earl Jones, Billy Dewilliams, Richard Prior and Stan Shaw play their parts to perfection. The music is excellent, capturing the flavor of the times. There are some huge belly-laughs and the plot keeps one interested throughout. Great sports movie.

This spry baseball comedy, inspired by some actual history, is great fun, especially when seen as a vehicle for its talented stars. Billy Dee Williams plays Bingo Long (based on the real-life Satchel Paige), a charismatic pitcher for the Negro League in 1939, who gets VERY tired of having to deal with sleazy team owners such as Sallie Potter (Ted Ross). So he recruits fellow baseball player Leon Carter (James Earl Jones) (based on Josh Gibson), and various others, to join him in a quest to start their OWN flashy, barnstorming baseball team. Naturally, they will have many roadblocks in their path to success

Charming, irresistible entertainment, and you don't have to necessarily be a baseball fan in order to enjoy it. Granted, it gets nasty at one point (for a PG rated film), and gets somewhat serious as well, but it never becomes so ugly that you can't still stick with it. It gets most of its juice from the dazzling performances of its stars, Williams and Jones. Jones appears to be having a grand old time, and co-star Richard Pryor unsurprisingly steals many of his scenes as a ballplayer who thinks that his key to success is passing himself off as Cuban and joining the white league. (There's a hilarious payoff for him near the end.) There's some more than respectable recreations of the period, a jaunty score (by William Goldstein), and wonderful old-time songs (belted out by Thelma Houston). The fair amount of familiar faces in the cast also includes stuntman Jophery C. Brown, Tony Burton of the "Rocky" franchise, Stan Shaw ("Snake Eyes"), DeWayne "Otis Day" Jessie ("National Lampoon's Animal House"), Mabel King ('What's Happening!!'), Sam Laws ("Hit Man"), Ahna Capri ("Enter the Dragon"), Joel Fluellen ("Porgy and Bess"), and Jester Hairston (John Wayne's version of "The Alamo").

Although it has a rather lengthy running time (at 111 minutes), this movie never feels that long, due to an entertaining narrative and characters, and many scenes that hold ones' attention. It's intelligent, making some points about race relations and the way that athletes are treated, but never gets heavy-handed about it, while remaining engrossing both comedically and dramatically. It doesn't seem to be remembered by many nowadays, which is just too bad.

Ken Foree of future "Dawn of the Dead" fame makes his film debut as a muscle man.

Eight out of 10.

Having once stumbled onto this movie on TV years ago but not watching past the opening credits, I finally got to see the whole thing on YouTube right now. A fictional account of one Negro League baseball team during the late '30s, this is quite a fun picture despite some occasionally serious issues permeating some of the narrative. Billy Dee Williams plays the title character, James Earl Jones is his charismatic buddy who's also good at batting as seen in the early scenes when Billy pitches at him. And Richard Pryor does a funny turn pretending to be Cuban in order to break in the white national teams. Unfortunately, the YT upload skipped on some of his lines and maybe scenes. Still, this was quite a fun movie to watch especially near the end which I won't reveal. So on that note, I highly recommend The Bing Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings.

This film got great reviews when it came out, but I had to go to a African-American neighborhood theater to see it. That was only where it was being shown. It was not marketed for a general (prodominently white) audience. I believe that it has been overlooked since for the same reason: it is believed to be a movie about African-Americans which can be appreciated only by African-Americans.

This is far from the case. It is a movie about individuals trying to do the work they love while being frustrated by irrational human attitudes and biases. It is a movie about adapting to the perception that your world is changing and the change will be good for others, but not be good for you. It is as good a movie ever made about finding your goals and persisting in reaching them, even as the value of the goal recedes before you.

And it is hilarious. It is done with sly humor as well as laugh-out-loud wild humor.

It's 1938. Pitcher Bingo Long (Billy Dee Williams) and catcher Leon Carter (James Earl Jones) are in the Negro League. Charlie Snow (Richard Pryor) schemes to get into the major leagues as a Cuban. They are tired of being mistreated by their owners and go on a barnstorming tour of the mid-west. The tour becomes a rival to the existing Negro League. When the black owners conspire to stop them, they play white folks.

It's a fun slice of baseball history that isn't done much in pale Hollywood. The story is pretty thin until they get to forty five minutes. Adding an overt racial component really amps up the drama. The evil owners start doing stuff. The story is a little messy like the team itself, but there is good compelling material.