The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings (1976) Playing Ball With Motown Productions (Review)

When we think of Motown, we inevitably think of that glorious back catalogue of music – the mainstay of many a party or get together. What we don’t think of, is cinema. Nevertheless, Motown supremo Berry Gordy Jr launched Motown Productions in 1968, hopeful that he could corner the market in cinema with the same success he had managed in the music world. It didn’t really come to pass, but Motown Productions nevertheless produced some interesting movies in the 1970s – from biopics of Afro-American music legends like Billie Holiday as played by Diana Ross in Lady Sings the Blues (1972) to Ross’ co-star Billy Dee Williams playing Scott Joplin in the 1977 film of the same name, to the far-out pitch of The Wiz, 1978’s reimagining of The Wizard of Oz starring Diana Ross as Dorothy, Michael Jackson as The Scarecrow, Ted Ross as The Cowardly Lion and Richard Pryor as the eponymous wizard. This week, Indicator have decided to dust down another film from this period, starring some heavy hitters from Motown Productions – Billy Dee Williams, James Earl Jones, Richard Pryor and Ted Ross – as heavy-hitting baseball stars in the gloriously named The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings.

This 1977 film by director John Badham has a basis in truth. In the pre-war era, the American sport of baseball was, much like the country itself, segregated between blacks and whites. Afro-American ballplayers were contained and only allowed to play in what was known as the ‘Negro League’. The players and games in this league attracted huge, encouraging audiences which made stars of some ballplayers. Bingo Long, as I will call this film from now on, is loosely based on a 1973 William Brashler novel of the same name that is a fictionalised account of some of those ballplayers whose fame and talent ultimately saw them cross the colour bar, names like Leroy ‘Satchell’ Paige, Josh Gibson, Jackie Robinson and Willie Mays. However, as a film, Bingo Long concerns itself with the final days of the ‘Negro League’ in the late 1930s. Billy Dee Williams stars as the eponymous and charismatic star pitcher who becomes tired of the ill-treatment that team owners like quasi-gangster and funeral director Sallison Potter (Ted Ross) practice, such as docking the entire team’s wages to pay for the medical bills of ballplayer Rainbow (Otis Day) injured during the course of a game.

Inspired by the political beliefs of hitter Leon Carter (James Earl Jones) and his talk of ‘seizing the means of production’, Long decides to strike out on his own, creating his own team from the cream of the Negro League. Announcing themselves as the titular Bingo Long Traveling-All Stars & Motor Kings, this new team of motley players – including Richard Pryor’s Charlie Snow, who dreams of passing himself off as Cuban or even Native American to ensure he can get signed to play in the white leagues – are kitted out in flamboyant garish strips and schooled in the eye-catching art of theatrical entertainment, of putting on a show. With two convertibles and a motorbike, they hit the road and travel across rural America, playing ball in whatever town will take them, against whatever team games wishes to play – even white ones – and sharing the profits equally. The word soon gets back to Potter and his fellow club owners about how these revolutionary All-Stars with their diverting and entertaining showmanship style baseball are finding favour and they are not best pleased. First, they shut them out of the Negro League altogether, then their sabotage turns to acts of physical intimidation and violence and finally, bankrupting them altogether. The stage is ultimately set for a showdown between Bingo’s All-Stars and a specially picked team from the Negro League to decide who really are the champions of the sport.

Though billed as a comedy, Bingo Long is perhaps best described as a light drama whose comedy perhaps derives from the theatrics of the team itself; think the Harlem Globetrotters of the basketball world. The drama of course comes from the politics of the day. As the film deals with the notion of a segregated sport, the issue of race must be confronted throughout the film. For me personally, I found that Bingo Long sugar-coated the issue a little too much. When Potter’s attempts to block the All-Stars from competing in the League prove successful, the team resort to playing – for the first time – against white ballplayers and the latter are, unsurprisingly, racist and hostile. Made today a movie like this would rightly challenge such contempt, but here the All-Stars (and the film itself) laugh it off by resorting to their clownish antics which ultimately bring the white audiences on side. There’s a debate here about why the All-Stars felt that they could only succeed by clowning, how they felt it necessary to rely on their japes rather than their undeniable athleticism and sporting prowess to find favour and avoid further racial prejudice. The ugly stereotype of Black people serving purely as entertainment for white folk, the ramifications of that or whether Long is right to follow that course are not explored. Perhaps the filmmakers (including, of course, the white John Badham) believed that a lighter touch was necessary for mainstream appeal? I don’t know. What I do know however is that some un-PC comedy is mined from Pryor’s persistent efforts to convince others that he is Cuban or Native American so he can break into the white leagues – and make it with white women. It’s not a pretty sight and the jokes rightly fall flat. A real shame, because Pryor was one of the reasons this film appealed to me in the first place.

What I did find interesting was how the film depicts the atmosphere of the Negro League game. Being British, I know next to nothing about baseball but even I can see that the way Bingo Long presents ballplayers joking among one another and the crowds, encouraging and starting chants which the predominantly Black audiences quickly and emphatically take up, is a more festival-like air to the formalities seen in other (white) films depicting the sport like The Natural. To that end, I am reminded a little of how baseball’s older, more formal cousin cricket was rocked on its home turf in England by the free-spirited West Indian audiences in the 1970s. It also left me feeling sad in a way that the segregation came to an end, as odd as that may sound, as that spirit perhaps died with the game as audiences were inevitably put into line. I don’t know though like I say, I’m not a follower of the sport. The change itself is handled in the final stages of the movie, when one of Bingo’s players is signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers. Bingo knows that the Negro League’s days are numbered and, in turn, so will his career. It’s a bittersweet conclusion, even though the irrepressible Bingo, with his eye forever fixed on the next opportunity, refuses to be down for long.

As a piece of entertainment, Bingo Long is perhaps indicative of the disappointments of Motown Productions in comparison to their musical output. It is a light and pleasant romp, but it doesn’t have the necessary substance to be even a minor classic. Indicator have done their usual solidly impressive job with this Blu-ray release, including a new HD transfer and a 2007 audio commentary from Badham, but the real treasure within the extras is Craig Davidson’s 1983 feature-length documentary on the Negro League era, There Was Always Sun Shining Someplace narrated by James Earl Jones and featuring archival footage and interviews with numerous baseball players. For anyone curious to learn more after watching the main feature, this is the place to start.

THANKS FOR READING MARK’S REVIEW OF THE BINGO LONG TRAVELLING ALL-STARS & MOTOR KINGS

Louis Theroux has always been fascinated by Michael Jackson. And Graham and Aidan have always been fascinated by Louis Theroux. So it makes perfect sense – ish – to follow up yesterday’s Moonwalker episode with a look at Theroux’s 2003 documentary trying to gain access to the King of Pop at a difficult time in, frankly, both men’s careers. Join us for a discussion of all four of the men this film focuses on: the national treasure that is Theroux, the more problematic figure of Jackson, the recently disgraced Martin Bashir… and Uri Geller.

PATREON POP SCREEN

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