Mill Creek Entertainment Doubles Up On The Laughter On July 11 With The Richard Pryor Blu-ray Double Feature Of Which Way Is Up? And The Bing Long Traveling All-Stars And Motor Kings

Mill Creek Entertainment doubles up on the launch this coming July 11 with a Richard Pryor double-feature on Blu-ray.

Kicking off the laughfest is director Michael Schultz’s 1977 comedy, Which Way is Up?, starring Richard Pryor, Richard Pryor and … Richard Pryor.   That’s right, he’s Leroy, Rufus and the Reverend Lenox Thomas all in the same film.

Schultz has just finished up Greased Lightning, where he was called into replace Melvin Van Peebles on the biopic about early NASCAR racing legend Wendell Scott (Pryor).   Pryor and Schultz quite literally wrapped Greased Lightning in Georgia and then flew to Los Angeles to begin production on Which Way is Up?

Here, Pryor plays hard-pressed farm laborer Leroy Jones, who shares cramped quarters with his wife, Annie Mae (Margaret Avery), his father Rufus (also Pryor) and Janelle (Gloria Edwards) and her kids.   Through a series of comedy mishaps, Leroy is hailed as a farmer worker’s rights advocate, fired from his job, has his pick-up truck crushed by his vengeful employer, his wife dumps him and he ends on the streets of Los Angeles dead broke.

He bounces back, has an affair with Vanetta (Lonette McKee) — they have a son — interrupts an assassination attempt, becomes a hero and everything is looking up!   But how long can that last?

And then there is the Reverend Lenox Thomas (Pryor), a hustler and philanderer of epic proportions.   If you thought things were complicated enough, you’ve seen nothing yet … Leroy manages to get in the middle of that mess, even to the point of having an affair with Lenox’s wife, Sister Sarah Thomas (Marilyn Coleman)!!

Teamed with Which Way is Up? in this Richard Pryor double-feature Blu-ray release is director John Badham’s 1976 comedy, The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings.

This was a Motown production with Universal Pictures co-producing and Billy Dee Williams as the star, but naturally Richard Pryor stole the show.   At one point Martin Ritt, George Roy Hill and even Steven Spielberg were going to direct the film, but Spielberg had to bow out at the last moment when the post-production work on Jaws went over both time and budget.

The story takes a look at the last days of the old Negro Baseball League, with Bingo (Billy Dee Williams), Leon (James Earl Jones) and Charlie (Richard Pryor) forming an all-star team when they run afoul of corruption with their former team.   They hit the road and become a huge fan draw, which draws the ire of their former league owners.

Also getting a double-feature Blu-ray release from Mill Creek Entertainment on July 11 is director Geoffrey Sax’s 2005 supernatural horror film, White Noise, starring Michael Keaton, and the 2007 sequel, White Noise 2: The Light, with Patrick Lussier directing and Nathan Fillion in the starring role.