The Toy
Encyclopedia
The Toy is a 1982 American comedy film
starring Richard Pryor
, Jackie Gleason
, Ned Beatty
, Scott Schwartz
, Teresa Ganzel
and Virginia Capers
. It is an adaptation of the 1976
French
film Le Jouet. The film is directed by Richard Donner
.
) is an unemployed newspaper reporter in Baton Rouge, Louisiana
in danger of losing his house to the bank. After numerous unsuccessful attempts to get a job working for the local paper, the Bugle, he becomes so desperate that he ends up taking a job as a "cleaning lady" for wealthy U.S. Bates (Gleason
), who owns the paper and many other businesses. Brown is humiliated as he clumsily attempts to serve food at a luncheon
. He is fired, but lands a part-time job in a department store owned by Bates.
"Master" Eric Bates (Schwartz
), the spoiled-brat son of the boss, has been told that he can have anything in the store. Amused at seeing Jack goof around in the store's toy section, Eric informs his father's right-hand man Sydney Morehouse (Beatty
) that what he wants is Jack himself.
Morehouse fails to convince Eric that human beings cannot be owned. In exchange for a generous financial settlement, Jack agrees to be Eric's live-in friend during Eric's one-week spring break from military school.
Emotionally estranged from his father, Eric takes a liking to Jack but still manages to humiliate him with numerous pranks. After a particularly humiliating incident in the mansion incited by Bates' ditzy wife Fancy (Ganzel
), who literally introduces him at a dinner party as Eric's new "toy," Jack grows tired of the situation and leaves. He agrees to return only when U.S. Bates (with Morehouse as his proxy) offers Jack so much money that he can not only pay back the bank, but the mortgage on his house as well.
Jack returns, determined to teach Eric how a friend is supposed to be treated. They bond while participating in mini-cart racing, video games, and even fishing in a stream filled with pirahna. The pair decide to start a newspaper of their own for fun. After witnessing multiple examples of Bates' cruelty, they dig up dirt on him, such as a story of how he won his butler, Barkley (Wilfrid Hyde-White
), in a game of billiards
. They publish their paper and distribute it throughout the city. Bates is outraged.
To prove to his son that money can buy loyalty, he offers Jack a reporting job with his newspaper, which is what Jack wanted all along. When he accepts, Eric is upset because he thinks Jack is selling out. Jack tells the boy that most men (especially disenfranchised African-American men such as himself) need jobs, just as his priority is to support himself and his wife.
A swanky outdoor party is later held at the Bates estate. It is attended by wealthy businessmen and politicians, some of whom are unaware it is to be a fundraising event for the Ku Klux Klan
. Jack cannot abide that, so he and Eric—teaming up one last time— disrupt the party and expose the real purpose behind it, an attempt to blackmail the senator who is among those bringing a federal indictment against Bates. Bates chases after Jack in a golf cart but ends up crashing into his own pool. Jack saves him from drowning, and it seems all is forgiven. Jack packs up and returns to his neighborhood with his wife.
The next day, while driving Eric to the airport to return to military school, Bates tries desperately to have a heart-to-heart talk. Eric runs off, making his way to Jack's house. Jack gently admonishes Eric to give his father a chance. Bates offers the newspaper job to Jack again and promises Eric that next year he can spend one week with him and one with Jack, much to Eric's joy.
Nevertheless, the film fared much better with audiences. It earned roughly $
47 million at the box office, making it the 14th-highest grossing movie of 1982
(when adjusted for inflation
this equates to roughly $123 million in 2011
amounts). Since that time, it has grossed another $24 million plus in rentals.
Comedy film
Comedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. They are designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are mostly light-hearted dramas and are made to amuse and entertain the audiences...
starring Richard Pryor
Richard Pryor
Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor was an American stand-up comedian, actor, social critic, writer and MC. Pryor was known for uncompromising examinations of racism and topical contemporary issues, which employed colorful vulgarities, and profanity, as well as racial epithets...
, Jackie Gleason
Jackie Gleason
Jackie Gleason was an American comedian, actor and musician. He was known for his brash visual and verbal comedy style, especially by his character Ralph Kramden on The Honeymooners, a situation-comedy television series. His most noted film roles were as Minnesota Fats in the drama film The...
, Ned Beatty
Ned Beatty
Ned Thomas Beatty is an American actor who has appeared in more than 100 films and has been nominated for an Academy Award, two Emmy Awards, an MTV Movie Award for Best Villain and a Golden Globe Award; won a Drama Desk Award....
, Scott Schwartz
Scott Schwartz
Scott Schwartz is a former child actor best known for his roles in The Toy and A Christmas Story.-Career:Schwartz co-starred opposite Richard Pryor and Jackie Gleason in 1982's The Toy directed by Richard Donner. In 1982, Schwartz filmed Kidco directed by Ronald F. Maxwell...
, Teresa Ganzel
Teresa Ganzel
Teresa Ganzel is an actress, comedienne, and cartoon voice-over actress.-Career:Teresa Ganzel was best known as a recurring cast member of The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson, having replaced the late Carol Wayne as the Matinee Lady in the popular "Mighty Carson Art Players" skits...
and Virginia Capers
Virginia Capers
Eliza Virginia Capers was an American actress.-Early life:Born in Sumter, South Carolina, Capers attended Howard University and studied voice at the Juilliard School in New York City. She made her Broadway debut in Jamaica in 1957...
. It is an adaptation of the 1976
1976 in film
The year 1976 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*March 22 - Filming begins on George Lucas' Star Wars science fiction film...
French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
film Le Jouet. The film is directed by Richard Donner
Richard Donner
Richard Donner is an American film director, film producer, and comic book writer.The production company The Donners' Company is owned by Donner and his wife, producer Lauren Shuler Donner. After directing the horror film The Omen, Donner became famous for the hailed creation of the first modern...
.
Plot
Jack Brown (PryorRichard Pryor
Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor was an American stand-up comedian, actor, social critic, writer and MC. Pryor was known for uncompromising examinations of racism and topical contemporary issues, which employed colorful vulgarities, and profanity, as well as racial epithets...
) is an unemployed newspaper reporter in Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Baton Rouge is the capital of the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is located in East Baton Rouge Parish and is the second-largest city in the state.Baton Rouge is a major industrial, petrochemical, medical, and research center of the American South...
in danger of losing his house to the bank. After numerous unsuccessful attempts to get a job working for the local paper, the Bugle, he becomes so desperate that he ends up taking a job as a "cleaning lady" for wealthy U.S. Bates (Gleason
Jackie Gleason
Jackie Gleason was an American comedian, actor and musician. He was known for his brash visual and verbal comedy style, especially by his character Ralph Kramden on The Honeymooners, a situation-comedy television series. His most noted film roles were as Minnesota Fats in the drama film The...
), who owns the paper and many other businesses. Brown is humiliated as he clumsily attempts to serve food at a luncheon
Luncheon
Luncheon, commonly abbreviated to lunch, is a mid-day meal, and is smaller than dinner.In English-speaking countries during the eighteenth century, lunch was originally called "dinner"— a word still used regularly to mean a noontime meal in Scotland, Ireland, Wales and some parts of England,...
. He is fired, but lands a part-time job in a department store owned by Bates.
"Master" Eric Bates (Schwartz
Scott Schwartz
Scott Schwartz is a former child actor best known for his roles in The Toy and A Christmas Story.-Career:Schwartz co-starred opposite Richard Pryor and Jackie Gleason in 1982's The Toy directed by Richard Donner. In 1982, Schwartz filmed Kidco directed by Ronald F. Maxwell...
), the spoiled-brat son of the boss, has been told that he can have anything in the store. Amused at seeing Jack goof around in the store's toy section, Eric informs his father's right-hand man Sydney Morehouse (Beatty
Ned Beatty
Ned Thomas Beatty is an American actor who has appeared in more than 100 films and has been nominated for an Academy Award, two Emmy Awards, an MTV Movie Award for Best Villain and a Golden Globe Award; won a Drama Desk Award....
) that what he wants is Jack himself.
Morehouse fails to convince Eric that human beings cannot be owned. In exchange for a generous financial settlement, Jack agrees to be Eric's live-in friend during Eric's one-week spring break from military school.
Emotionally estranged from his father, Eric takes a liking to Jack but still manages to humiliate him with numerous pranks. After a particularly humiliating incident in the mansion incited by Bates' ditzy wife Fancy (Ganzel
Teresa Ganzel
Teresa Ganzel is an actress, comedienne, and cartoon voice-over actress.-Career:Teresa Ganzel was best known as a recurring cast member of The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson, having replaced the late Carol Wayne as the Matinee Lady in the popular "Mighty Carson Art Players" skits...
), who literally introduces him at a dinner party as Eric's new "toy," Jack grows tired of the situation and leaves. He agrees to return only when U.S. Bates (with Morehouse as his proxy) offers Jack so much money that he can not only pay back the bank, but the mortgage on his house as well.
Jack returns, determined to teach Eric how a friend is supposed to be treated. They bond while participating in mini-cart racing, video games, and even fishing in a stream filled with pirahna. The pair decide to start a newspaper of their own for fun. After witnessing multiple examples of Bates' cruelty, they dig up dirt on him, such as a story of how he won his butler, Barkley (Wilfrid Hyde-White
Wilfrid Hyde-White
Wilfrid Hyde-White was an English character actor.-Early life and career:Wilfrid Hyde White was born at the rectory in Bourton-on-the-Water in Gloucestershire, the son of William Edward White, canon of Gloucester Cathedral, and his wife, Ethel Adelaide Drought...
), in a game of billiards
Billiards
Cue sports , also known as billiard sports, are a wide variety of games of skill generally played with a cue stick which is used to strike billiard balls, moving them around a cloth-covered billiards table bounded by rubber .Historically, the umbrella term was billiards...
. They publish their paper and distribute it throughout the city. Bates is outraged.
To prove to his son that money can buy loyalty, he offers Jack a reporting job with his newspaper, which is what Jack wanted all along. When he accepts, Eric is upset because he thinks Jack is selling out. Jack tells the boy that most men (especially disenfranchised African-American men such as himself) need jobs, just as his priority is to support himself and his wife.
A swanky outdoor party is later held at the Bates estate. It is attended by wealthy businessmen and politicians, some of whom are unaware it is to be a fundraising event for the Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
. Jack cannot abide that, so he and Eric—teaming up one last time— disrupt the party and expose the real purpose behind it, an attempt to blackmail the senator who is among those bringing a federal indictment against Bates. Bates chases after Jack in a golf cart but ends up crashing into his own pool. Jack saves him from drowning, and it seems all is forgiven. Jack packs up and returns to his neighborhood with his wife.
The next day, while driving Eric to the airport to return to military school, Bates tries desperately to have a heart-to-heart talk. Eric runs off, making his way to Jack's house. Jack gently admonishes Eric to give his father a chance. Bates offers the newspaper job to Jack again and promises Eric that next year he can spend one week with him and one with Jack, much to Eric's joy.
Reaction
Upon its release, The Toy was roundly panned by critics. At best, some felt that the movie was a waste of the comedic talents of Pryor and Gleason. At worst, others viewed Pryor's portrayal of an essentially modern-day slave as degrading. The film has also been called racist because of that reason and the fact that there are many hidden Confederate flags throughout the film (as it was filmed on location in Lousianna), making The Rotten Tomatoes Show to place it as the number one kids' movie inappropriate for children, and to make fun of the fact that Scott Schwartz later became a porn star.Nevertheless, the film fared much better with audiences. It earned roughly $
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
47 million at the box office, making it the 14th-highest grossing movie of 1982
1982 in film
-Events:* March 26 = I Ought to Be in Pictures, starring Walter Matthau, Ann-Margret and Dinah Manoff is released. Manoff would not appear in another movie until 1987's Backfire.* June = PG-rated film E.T...
(when adjusted for inflation
Inflation
In economics, inflation is a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy over a period of time.When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services. Consequently, inflation also reflects an erosion in the purchasing power of money – a...
this equates to roughly $123 million in 2011
2011 in film
The year 2011 is notable for containing the release of the most film sequels in a single year, at 27 sequels. The following tables list films that are in production or have completed production and will be released in the United States and Canada at some point in 2011.- Highest-grossing films :...
amounts). Since that time, it has grossed another $24 million plus in rentals.