Fourth and final of four Richard Pryor live performance concert films. The others are Richard Pryor: Live and Smokin' (1971) (60 minutes), Richard Pryor: Live in Concert (1979), and Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip (1982).
To capture Richard Pryor "behind the scenes" in his most candid moments, the camera followed Pryor from Los Angeles to New Orleans, talking intimately with him about his new life without booze or drugs, though he admits he had been doing so much dope that "I had enough residual in me it kept me high for months". Off drugs for the past eight months, Pryor openly and vehemently opposed drug use of any kind.
Richard Pryor's joke about the bartender telling him "We have no more fucking liquor!" was originally told on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962) minus the F-word.
Following on the heels of his last two successful films, Superman III (1983) and The Toy (1982), Pryor took some time off early in 1983, literally to "get his act together", using Los Angeles' famed Comedy Store to test out new material and polish his routines.
The record album "Richard Pryor: Here and Now " (1983) was the final official album of actor-comedian by Richard Pryor. It was recorded at the Saenger Theatre in New Orleans, Louisiana.