The Toy (1982) on Netflix
Unemployed writer Jack Brown takes a janitor's job at U.S. Bates's store. Bates's son Eric, offered any gift there, picks Jack, and Bates pays Jack to spend a week with him.
- Netflix3.4/5
- IMDb5.8/1014,440 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes3%
Trailer
Plot summary
Jack Brown is a writer in Baton Rouge who has no job and a house in danger of repossession. After failed attempts to get hired by the local paper, the Bugle, he takes work cleaning at a store run by the businessman U.S. Bates, and Bates fires him after Jack clumsily serves food at a luncheon. Jack still shows up at the store that evening, where Bates's spoiled son Eric, on a week's spring break from military school, watches him fool around in the toy section and decides Jack is the gift he wants. Bates's right-hand man, Sydney Morehouse, cannot convince the boy that people cannot be owned, so Bates pays Jack a settlement and Jack moves in as Eric's companion for the week.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Toy (1982)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Michael Jackson attempted to write a theme song for the film and a possible soundtrack in 1981, but did not complete it because of his commitments working on the Thriller album.
- Jackson kept reworking the track, renaming it "I Am Your Joy" and eventually "Best of Joy"; a 2008 recording was released posthumously on the Michael album in 2010, and his original demo appeared on Thriller 40 in 2022 under the title "The Toy".
- During filming in May, Pryor was hospitalized with pneumonia for a week; Donner blamed the air pollution in Baton Rouge, which he said was the worst he had ever experienced, and said he would "never" work in the city again.
- In his autobiography Pryor Convictions, Pryor wrote that he and Gleason got along like "kindred souls", and that the stories Gleason told between setups were funnier than the film itself.
- The film opened in the United States the same weekend as Airplane II: The Sequel and 48 Hrs. and still finished at number one, with $6,322,804 from 1,381 screens; despite the bad reviews it went on to gross $47,118,057 in the United States and Canada.
- The Toy is an adaptation of the 1976 French comedy film Le Jouet, and it was a box office success despite being pilloried by film critics.
