The Toy

Year: 1982

Country: USA

Tagline: When Jackie Gleason Told His Son He Could Have Any Present He Wanted, He Picked The Most Outrageous Gift Of All... Richard Pryor.

Plot: Jack Brown (Richard Pryor) is an unemployed newspaper reporter living in Baton Rouge, Louisiana who is in danger of losing his house to the bank since he and his wife cannot make their mortgage. 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 U.S. Bates (Jackie Gleason), an uptight and ruthless businessman who owns the paper and many other businesses in Louisiana. Jack is humiliated as he clumsily attempts to serve food at a luncheon. He is fired, but quickly lands a part-time job as a janitor in a department store owned by Bates.The following evening, "Master" Eric Bates (Scott Schwartz), the 10-year-old, spoiled-and-rotten, prviledged, brat son of the boss, arrives home from the military academy where he attends and his father sends him to the store and he is told that he "can have anything he wants in the store". Amused at seeing Jack goof around in the store's toy section, Eric informs his father's long-suffering right-hand man Sydney Morehouse (Ned Beatty) that what he wants is Jack Brown himself. Morehouse fails to convince Eric that human beings cannot be owned. Jack is literally "boxed up" and taken to the large Bates mansion that sits on the outskirts of the city.At first, Jack refuses to have any interaction with the brat Eric, but Bates offers him a deal: in exchange for a generous financial settlement, Jack reluntantly 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 during the first day and night. After a particularly humiliating incident in the mansion incited by Bates' ditzy and floosy trophy wife Fancy (Teresa Ganzel), who literally introduces him at a dinner party as Eric's new "toy," Jack grows tired of the situation and leaves. The next day, Jack agrees to return only when U.S. Bates (with Morehouse as his proxy) offers Jack so much money to be Eric's live-in friend for one week, that Jack will not only pay back the bank and numerous bill collectors, but Jack will be able to pay back the entire mortgage on his house as well.Jack returns to the Bates estate, determined to teach Eric how a friend is supposed to be treated. Over the next several days, they slowly bond while participating in mini-cart racing, video games, and even fishing in a stream filled with pirahna. Both Jack and Eric begin to open up to one another with stories about their personal lives. Jack tells Eric about him growing up poor and having to look out for oneself. Eric tells Jack about his mother's death when he was very young which his grumpy father tries to forget about by putting all his time in work and leaving no time for anything else while marrying again and again.Over time, Jack sees that Eric isn't the "bad seed" that he puts out to people, but just a mistreated and neglected boy who wants attention and whom is spoiled by his father. Used to getting things his way since all his father ever does is give him gifts and money (calling it love and affection) Eric throws fits when things do not go his way. Eric is so spoiled and hypercompetative that he enjoys beating Jack at video games, minicart racing and board games a little too much. One day, when Jack begins winning at a two-person basketball game, Eric, seeing that he is losing, refuses to play anymore. When Jack scolds Eric for quiting because he is losing asks if he would like to tell Eric's father that he is a quitter as well as a sore loser. Eric replies with the most dramatic line in the movie: "my father doesn't care what I am... as long as I stay out of his way."Another day later, Jack and Eric decide to start a newspaper of their own for fun. After witnessing multiple examples of Bates' cruelty to his housekeeping staff and workers, they dig up dirt on him, such as a story of how he won his elderly and long-suffering butler, Barkley (Wilfrid Hyde-White), in a game of billiards. Jack and Eric then break into Bates newspaper office after-hours as well as the factory to print their paper, but get discovered by the police. At a police station, Eric manages to create a diversion by setting off some firecrackers creating confusion and panic in which Jack and Eric quietly walk out of their jail cell, and out of the front door.Afterwards, Jack and Eric publish their paper, titled 'The Toy' and distribute free copies of it throughout the city. Bates finds a copy when Morehouse finds one and he is outraged. Bates quickly calls Jack and Eric to his office to confront them both. However, Eric is unapologetic and wants to continue the paper. To prove to his son that money can buy anything (including loyalty), Bates offers Jack a reporting job with his newspaper, which is what Jack wanted all along. When he accepts, Eric becomes 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.At the climax, a swanky outdoor party is held at the Bates estate. It is attended by wealthy businessmen and politicians, some of whom aren't aware it is to be a fundraising event for the Ku Klux Klan. Jack can't abide that, so he and Eric (teaming up one last time) disrupt the party on their minicarts and expose the real purpose behind it: an attempt to blackmail the local Louisiana senator who is among those bringing a federal indictment against Bates for securties fraud and suspected corruption. Chaos ensues which leads to Jack and Eric driving their minicarts around the party, knocking down tents, ruining displays, and people jumping out of the path of Jack and Eric's minicarts into various desert trays which leads to a huge pie-throwing fight among the guests.Bates chases after Jack in a golf cart but ends up crashing into his own swimming pool. Jack saves him from drowning since Bates cannot swim, and it seems all is forgiven. That evening with the week up, Jack packs up and returns to his neighborhood to his wife, riding away on a bicycle while Eric sadly waves goodbye.The next day, while riding with Eric in a limousine to the airport to return to military school, Bates tries desperately to have a heart-to-heart talk with his son, but he is not very good at it. All Eric talks about is Jack and that he misses him. Bates tells Eric to forget about Jack. While on the runway to board Bates' private jet, Eric runs off, making his way to Jack's house. Jack refuses to let Eric live with him and gently admonishes Eric to give his father a chance. Bates shows up and offers the newspaper job to Jack again and promises Eric that next year for spring break he can spend one week with him and one with Jack, much to Eric's joy.An underemployed reporter finds himself literally purchased as a toy for a rich spoiled brat. Initially unwilling to be treated as a possession, he soon agrees after the boy's wealthy father offers to pay him enough to climb out of debt.

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