Richard Pryor's brief television stint is relived
By Terry Lawson
Knight Ridder News Service
While its reputation may outshine its actual accomplishments, the release of "The Richard Pryor Show Vol. 1 & 2" (Image) is still a good excuse to gather the young ones around the set for a look at a great comic of his time — maybe of all time — completely out of his element.
In the early '70s, Pryor was all over network TV, but as his ideas about comedy and race became increasingly radical and his movie audience began to grow, his TV appearances were almost exclusively limited to NBC's upstart "Saturday Night Live." His popularity there, coupled with the success of an hourlong special in May 1977, inspired NBC to offer him a prime-time series of his own, a decision both the network and Pryor would regret.
Tension preceding the premiere centered on what Pryor could or could not say on TV at 8 p.m. It manifested itself in one of the most famous opening monologues in television history, in which a naked-from-the-waist-up Pryor assured the audience he had sacrificed nothing to the network censors. The camera then panned down to show him naked but emasculated. (He was actually wearing a nude body stocking.) NBC ordered the skit pulled, then was embarrassed further when a report on the controversy ran on its own nightly news.
By mutual agreement, the show went off the air after only four episodes. Those 1977 episodes can now be seen collected on two discs. A third disc is devoted to the May special, which is as remarkable as remembered, primarily because of a long skit featuring Pryor as a barroom raconteur who returns home following a brawl to face his wife — played by poet Maya Angelou — in one of the most memorable encounters ever seen on TV.
Pryor also had an inspired bit as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, and his guests included John Belushi, a young Sandra Bernhard, and the Pips sans Gladys Knight, performing their backup vocals only.
Bernhard was back for skits in all four episodes, along with Tim Reid, Charles Fleischer, Marsha Warfield, John Witherspoon and Robin Williams. With the exception of a bona fide classic in which Pryor's Mudbone stumbles into the "Star Wars" cantina, the sketches now induce almost as much squirming as laughter, including one in which a white rock singer guns down his audience, and another in which a woman describes, with great deliberation, a lesbian encounter in a park. The last show ends with a "roast" in which the star is alternately lavishly praised or viciously pilloried.
"Volume 1" and "Volume 2," incidentally, are available individually.
Not to be overlooked again
If you blinked, you may have missed some of the more interesting recent theatrical releases, including "The Singing Detective" (Paramount). A remake of Dennis Potter's autobiographically inspired British miniseries, it follows an unhappy writer hospitalized with a disfiguring skin condition, whose drug-induced dreams have him as snappy detective who also croons a mean tune.
Robert Downey gives a fine performance as the writer; Katie Holmes is the nurse of a thousand fantasies; and Robin Wright Penn is the wife who deserves better than his scorn. Director Keith Gordon, who provides a commentary, doesn't get the firmest grip on the material, but it's still involving.
"Shattered Glass" (Lion's Gate) is the based-on-fact story of New Republic journalist Stephen Glass (played by Hayden Christensen of "Star Wars") who was called on his multiple fabrications and embellishments, by his editor, played in an understated but career-making performance by Peter Sarsgaard.
I expected "The Rundown" and "Honey" (both from Universal) to find larger audiences than they did in theaters last year, both being well-made and entertaining formula films. "Rundown" is an action-adventure starring The Rock as a bounty hunter sent to bring runaway screw-up Seann William Scott home from South America, only to team up with him to find a legendary treasure.
"Honey" was "Flashdance" goes hip-hop, with the appealing Jessica Alba as a dance teacher whose dreams of becoming a video choreographer come true, much to her disappointment. The DVDs — both of which contain deleted scenes and making-of featurettes — make entertaining rentals.
The same is true of "Dirty Pretty Things," an original and intelligent thriller by Stephen Frears about illegal immigrants in London, and "The Magdalene Sisters" (both from Miramax). The latter is an absorbing fictionalized account of women who fall victim to the very real Irish Catholic solution for dealing with girls who became pregnant or who scandalized their families — which was to make them virtual prisoners of a profit-churning laundry run by nuns.
"Scenes of the Crime" (Columbia Tristar) never got a theatrical release, despite featuring Jeff Bridges in fine form as a gangster whose kidnapping goes sour. He is left in a parked van with poor shlub Jon Abrahams, who holds him hostage as the gangster's partner and henchmen circle the wagon. This is the film last year's "Phone Booth" might have been, a smart, modest thriller with tension to spare.
Tom Hanks, Mel Gibson
To celebrate the 50th birthday of Ron Howard (could it be?) Touchstone is releasing two of the director's films in single-disc special editions. The are 1984's "Splash," the mermaid comedy which put Howard and star Tom Hanks on the A-list; and 1996's "Ransom," which has aviation executive Mel Gibson taking matters into his own hands when his son is kidnapped.
