Greased Lightning (1977)

(On Cable TV, October 2022) There are a lot reasons why Greased Lightning should be a much better film than it is. It features Richard Pryor in a dramatic role, Pam Grier and Beau Bridges in supporting turn, a re-creation of historical rural stock racing, the inspiring true story of a black stock car racer fighting against discrimination, and direction from a black filmmaker (Michael Schultz) at a time when such projects were rare. In theory, the film should be good—or at least entertaining. In execution, however, it sputters and falters frequently. What should be straightforward entertainment with a big chunk of anti-discrimination drama becomes disjointed and unsatisfying, with a big time jump that takes almost all of the fun out of the film. Pryor is rather good here—if you weren’t aware of his career in comedy, I’m not sure you could guess from the rest of the film. Alas, Grier doesn’t get much more to do except play the girlfriend, and while the recreations of 1950s small-town stock racing can be fun, the film fumbles the ball in depicting how that led to 1960s NASCAR success. (Small-town Southern racism is also hard to take at time.) A few good moments of racing entertainment are brought down by a film that hasn’t overcome the basic pacing issues of sticking to a true story and stops at the minimum required to be worth a look. Greased Lightning could and should have been much better—but it’s not, and that probably explains why the film remains a curio decades later.