Richard Pryor spits fire in his return to the spotlight, RICHARD PRYOR: LIVE ON THE SUNSET STRIP. Presented in 35mm!

“So Black people – we the first people who had thought, right? We was the first ones to say, ‘Where the fuck am I, and how do you get to Detroit?’” – Richard Pryor

Live on the Sunset Strip is an extraordinary feat even for a once-in-a-lifetime talent like Richard Pryor. His third stand-up film, Sunset Strip, captures Pryor as he makes his triumphant return to the stage after his whirlwind ride into stardom left him junked-out, burnt-up and broke. Cut together from two shows filmed at the Hollywood Palladium in 1981, Pryor starts off uncharacteristically shaky before settling into a remarkable performance that wrestles with the black experience in America, his formative years of poverty and grift, and his spiraling, hopeless addiction to drugs — and, somehow, it’s just about the funniest thing ever put to film.

Part of Nitehawk’s summer program COMEDIANS IN FILM (Stand Up/Stand Up Companion).