On one of his bratty son Eric's annual visits, the plutocrat U.S. Bates takes him to his department store and offers him anything in it as a gift. Eric chooses a black janitor who has made him laugh with his antics. At first the man suffers many indignities as Eric's "toy", but gradually teaches the lonely boy what it is like to have and to be a friend.
Acting
Pryor elevating garbage material with pure physical genius
Direction
Donner somehow making Gleason's racism 'whimsical'
Writing
Screenplay by future Oscar nominee for... different reasons
Director
Richard Donner
Richard Pryor
Jack Brown
Jackie Gleason
Ulysses Simpson 'U.S.' Bates
Ned Beatty
Sydney Morehouse
Scott Schwartz
Eric Bates
Teresa Ganzel
Fancy Bates
Wilfrid Hyde-White
Barkley
Tony King
Clifford
Annazette Chase
Angela
Don Hood
O'Brien
Karen Leslie-Lyttle
Fraulein
Virginia Capers
Ruby Simpson
Steve Kahan
State Trooper
Stocker Fontelieu
District Attorney Russell
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Pryor was fresh off his freebase explosion and took this for the paycheck, later calling it 'the most embarrassing thing I ever did.'
Based on a French film ('Le Jouet') but Americanized into oblivion; the original had class critique, this has Gleason in a diaper.
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