Greased Lightning

This being Memorial Day weekend here in the US, one of the non-movie related things that used to be a much bigger deal is the Indianapolis 500 car race, which is one of the oldest car races, dating back to 1903. "Indy Car" racing has declined in popularity for a bunch of reasons, partly I think because of the internal politics of the governing body, and in part because of the rise in popularity of stock car racing, which grew into NASCAR. (Note the SC which certainly used to stand for "stock car" although as someone who's not that much a fan of auto racing of any flavor, I don't know if it still does, and certainly the cars don't seem to be constructed from "stock" products any more.) The open-wheel racing got more attention from the movies in part because it's older, and in part for class reasons, as stock car racing grew out of moonshiners in the south trying to outrun the revenuers. There are some movies looking at the early days of what would become NASCAR; I've previous mentioned The Last American Hero; recently, I watched another one, Greased Lightning.

Wendell Scott was a real person who lived from 1921 to 1990 and who grew up in Danville, VA. There's an opening scene in the movie which shows his love for racing, although it's an informal bike race since none of the people depicted would have been well-off enough to race cars. Fast forward about a dozen years, and we're at 1945 or so which of course means the end of World War II and a lot of soldiers being demobbed and returning to their home towns. Scott (played by Richard Pryor) is one of those soldiers. Being black and from the small-town southern US, and then having gone off and seen a bit of the world fighting for his country, Scott doesn't want to go back to what was the normal career choice for black men in Danville, which would be to work in the cotton mills. Instead, he'd like to become an auto mechanic and own his own garage

However, starting one's own business takes money, so Wendell has to start off small, using the money he saved up from his military pay to buy a taxicab. He meets and falls in love with Mary (Pam Grier) and eventually marries her, telling her that his real dream is to race cars, although considering the sort of tracks they had in those days, you wonder where the money in it is. Not that there's much money in driving a taxicab either.

Wendell has a friend Slack (Cleavon Little) who is working for the moonshiners, who offer the opportunity of a much bigger payday, although obviously that money comes from the fact that the legitimate authorites are banning what these people are doing. The power of the black market in action. Wendell, seeing no other way to make money, joins in with the moonshiners. But of course it's not all that long before he gets arrested.

The sheriff (Vincent Gardenia) is in cahoots with a local racetrack owner, Byrnes (Noble Willingham), and they make a proposal to drop most of the charges against Wendell in exchange for his racing at Byrnes' track. It's a chance for Wendell and a cozy arrangement for the two white men: the novelty of a black driver might well bring in black patrons, while simultaneously giving certain sections of the white audience a villain to root against. The only white guy who seems to be honestly on Wendell's side is Hutch (Beau Bridges).

Scott slowly moves up the ladder as the sport of stock car racing grows, and eventually gets the chance to race in the big race....

Greased Lightning follows a lot of the stock (pun intended) formulas for sports movies, but it does them fairly well. Pryor shows, as he had done in Lady Sings the Blues, that he was actually a pretty darn good actor, not just a comic actor. Pam Grier doesn't have much to do, but she also shows that she could have done well in serious films had she not been pigeonholed into the blaxploitation genre.

If you're into car racing films, definitely give Greased Lightning a chance.