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| Written by Generoso Fierro |
Michael Schultz was one of the most successful African-American directors of the 1970s. Starting out in television as a director for the early part of the decade, Schultz graduated to the big screen in 1974 directing Diana Sands in
Honeybaby, Honeybaby, a low budget action film that was to be Sands’ last film before she passed away in 1973. Schultz immediately returned with the successful 1975 film,
Cooley High, a entertaining high school comedy/drama that many refer to as the “Black
American Graffiti.”
In 1976, Schultz hit it big with
Car Wash, one of the many “workplace comedies” of the 1970s that was inspired by Altman’s
M*A*S*H, and a film that also produced a number one soundtrack for the disco era. That film contained about eight minutes of a rising comic named Richard Pryor, who sometime between filming and release developed into a star after nine years of small parts (with the notable exception of one,
The Mack) in over a dozen films.
Schultz rushed out to cast Pryor in the lead role, and so in 1977, Schultz cast Pryor in a US remake of Lina Wertmuller’s
The Seduction Of Mimi, called
Which Way Is Up, converting the eternal schlubby Mimi of Wertmuller’s film into Leroy, a California grape picker who accidentally becomes a union leader. It is easily one of Pryor’s best performances as he (Pryor) plays several different characters in the same way that he could do onstage, with total commitment and at the drop of a hat.
While
Which Way Is Up was filming, another successful African-American director from that decade, Melvin Van Peebles, contacted Pryor. Melvin wanted to make a biopic about Wendell Scott, a World War Two veteran, moonshine runner, and a stock car racer on the Dixie Circuit who would become the first African-American to drive for NASCAR. With another opportunity to play the lead, Pryor was onboard for the project, and the film would be fittingly titled,
Greased Lightning.
Unfortunately, somewhere during the casting process, Van Peebles and the producers of
Greased Lightning began to have artistic differences, and Van Peebles was dismissed, leaving the film without a director. Eager to play Scott, Pryor asked Schultz while making
Which Was Is Up to helm the project, and Schultz agreed. Shortly after the wrap of
Which Way Is Up, Schultz and Pryor began work on
Greased Lightning.
A lot of talent was attached to
Greased Lightning.
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