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Richard Pryor: Live in Concert

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Richard Pryor: Live in Concert
Directed byJeff Margolis[1]
Written byRichard Pryor
Produced byStephen Blauner
Hillard Elkins
Del Jack
William Sargent Jr.
J. Mark Travis
StarringRichard Pryor
CinematographyTom Schamp
Edited byDaniel J. Johnson
Ken Johnson
Steve Livingston
Music byPatti LaBelle
Production
companies
Elkins Entertainment
SEE Theater Network
Distributed bySpecial Event Entertainment
Release date
  • January 1979 (1979-01)
Running time
78 minutes[1]
LanguageEnglish
Budget$750,000[2]
Box office$15.8 million[3]

Richard Pryor: Live in Concert is a 1979 American stand-up comedy concert film starring and written by Richard Pryor, and directed by Jeff Margolis.[1]

Production

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The film was shot at the Terrace Theater in Long Beach, California[1] on December 10, 1978. It was produced and distributed independently, and was the first full-length feature movie consisting of only stand-up comedy.[4] The double album Wanted: Live in Concert was recorded at other dates during the same tour, and features much of the same material included in the film.[citation needed]

Accolades

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Recipient(s) Award Category Result Ref(s)
Richard Pryor National Society of Film Critics Best Actor (5th place)
(tied with Klaus Kinski for Nosferatu the Vampyre and Roy Scheider for All That Jazz)
Nominated [5]

Reception and legacy

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In her review of Richard Pryor Live in Concert, Pauline Kael commented, "Probably the greatest of all recorded-performance films. Pryor had characters and voices bursting out of him .... Watching this mysteriously original physical comedian you can't account for his gift and everything he does seems to be for the first time."[6] Eddie Murphy has called it "the single greatest stand-up performance ever captured on film."[7]

In 2021, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[8]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d Maslin, Janet (February 16, 1979). "Richard Pryor Live in Concert (1979) Film: 'Pryor in Concert':Mime and Mimic". The New York Times.
  2. ^ David Permut: By Permut Only Movieline Staff (December 1, 1992). "Richard Pryor: Live in Concert". p. 2.
  3. ^ Richard Pryor: Live in Concert, Worldwide Box Office. Worldwide Box Office. Retrieved October 7, 2017.
  4. ^ Comedy gold: Richard Pryor Live in Concert | Stage | The Guardian
  5. ^ National Society of Film Critics Awards, USA (1980) - IMDb
  6. ^ Kael, Pauline (1991). 5001 Nights at the Movies. New York: Henry Holt and Company. p. 628. ISBN 978-0-8050-1367-2.
  7. ^ This is a quote from the "Eddie Murphy & Byron Allen interview", an extra on the DVD version of Eddie Murphy Delirious.
  8. ^ Tartaglione, Nancy (December 14, 2021). "National Film Registry Adds Return Of The Jedi, Fellowship Of The Ring, Strangers On A Train, Sounder, WALL-E & More". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved December 14, 2021.
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