GREASED LIGHTNING

1977

Richard Pryor, Beau Bridges, Cleavon Little, Earl Hindman, Pam Grier, Richie Havens, Vincent Gardenia

Wendell Scott, a racing champion and stock car driver of incredible skill, is also a hero in the Black community. He's broken more than racing records, he's broken America's color line. But his longtime enemy, Hutch, also happens to be his racing rival and a redneck of the first order. If Scott can concentrate on driving long enough to get over the social and political obstacles confronting him, he might just become a racing legend.

Not only is this a movie about the first black NASCAR champ but it's about the history of NASCAR. That's right people blacks are part of the history in one of America's greatest past times. I'm posting this for two reasons. First is because I figured because Richard Pryor was in it, it would be easily one of the millions of titles that I can get from netflix.com....nope. So I figured whatever and told my brother to get it from Blockbuster.....nope. Not only do they not carry it in the store he was at but Blockbuster doesn't carry the title (only on the online service). So being someone who thinks THE MAN is around all corners of life I got pissed and decided to write this. The second reason is because this is a fact that I had no clue of. I was taught about prohibition in school and the history of NASCAR was never told to me. You would think teachers would use something like this to get the interest of children of color but I guess I'm wrong. BAHH! Let me stop typing now, I've had my say. But if you can find this jem check it out and let me know how it is....