The Toy

"The Toy" is a remake of the French movie "Le Jouet," but writer Carol Sobieski and director Dick Donner have infused it with a racist theme that is specifically American.

US Bates (Gleason), a wealthy, powerful Louisiana industrialist purchases, Jack Brown, a janitor (Pryor) to perform as an object for his spoiled son's amusement.

After an initial period of friction due to young Eric's (Schwartz) obnoxious, selfish behavior, they agree to investigate Bates's personal and professional misbehavior in a home-made newspaper, called "The Toy."

Infuriated, Bates demonstrates to the two investigators that he owns the people who work for him by ordering his assistant named Morehouse (Beatty) to drop his pants on command (he later screams at another assistant "I told you to dance!")

The iconoclastic rebels who finally take down Bates at a Klan fundraiser are Eric's innocent generation who never knew Jim Crow and the truth-burdened, unemployed black man with nothing to lose because he's already at the bottom.

This movie is filled with enough Pryor minstrelsy to keep movie-going Whitey occupied and chuckling, but is at the same time digging deep into the reality and shame of this country's racist past, and, indeed, present. And we haven't even addressed the alcoholic indentured man-servant Barkley (Hyde-White) or the Fraulein-who-cries-Mandingo (Leslie-Lyttle.)

From the buying of Brown to the sycophantic staff to the Senator-for-hire Newcomb (consonance: Nuke 'Em,) US Bates proves that slavery isn't over...people just cost a little more these days.

In this day when skirting the issue of race and playing it safe at the risk of being offensive has crushed any discussion of racism in this country, it's nice to see that Hollywood once had the balls to make a movie that called a spade a...well, you get it.

Oh, and the kid grows up to be a porn star.

When I was a kid I actually loved this movie, but now that I'm a man, I'm kinda horrified by "The Toy." A rich white man buys a black man for his spoiled son? Or at least rents a black man for his son. And they take baths together? Yikes! I love Pryor, but I have to assume he took this gig for the money to feed his notorious crack habit. Moral of this movie? If you're a rich white man you can buy a black man for your son. Can you imagine the firestorm of protest if this movie came out today? And oh yeah, the kid became a real life porn star!!!

This film can be enjoyed by children due to it's obvious subject matter. But it also has a subtheme about racial and class divisions. Depending on the scene, the film's racial connotations range from depicting the use of blacks in subservient positions, to blatantly expressing that people can still sell themselves or be bought out of desperation.

Me and my sister used to watch this when we were children and we loved it. In fact, the last time I saw it I was only 8 years old, but I remember why I enjoyed the movie. I was too young to understand the adult politics but trust me this is a wonderful film for kids to watch. If I was to watch it now it will not be as powerful, and I may not even enjoy it. The point is this was a film made for children, and as this is the case only a child, or an adult who watched it and remembers it as a child are able to accurately review and justify it. Pryor's performance was superb and it shows how diverse he was being able to star in a children's film and manage to be so convincing and never patronises the film by under-performing.

This is simply put, a fun, charming movie about a boy (Scott Schwartz) who decides to make Richard Pryor his toy for a week while he visits his powerful father Jackie Gleason. Simple gags, jokes and life lessons are what this movie is all about. It should be noted that Schwartz, who also played "Flick" in A Christmas Story went on to co-star in non-sexual roles in hardcore XXX films, then did a XXX scene himself, virtually destroying any chance for a comeback as an adult actor.