A little known movie that my brother and I really enjoyed growing up was a fun family comedy called, Scavenger Hunt. It came out in 1979 and had an all-star cast of great comedians like Richard Benjamin, Richard Mulligan, James Coco, Dirk Benedict, Clevon Little, Cloris Leachman, Robert Morley, Ruth Gordon, Roddy McDowell, Tony Randall, Scatman Crothers, Stephen Furst, Stuart Pankin, Arnold Schwarzennegger, Richard Masur, Pat McCormick, Vincent Price, Meatloaf, and Willie Aames. The film is about the will of Milton Parker, who made millions inventing and selling board games and creates the ultimate game for his employees and famliy. Upon his death, his relatives and domestic staff gather for the reading of the will and it stipulates that a Scavenger Hunt will be held to determine the beneficiaries of his sizeable estate. The winning team gets all the money, the rest get nothing. It feels like It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad (is that enough Mads?) World (1963) or Midnight Madness (1980).
The film was directed by Michael Schultz, who also directed the Richard Pryor classics, Car Wash, Greased Lightning, Which Way is Up and Bustin’ Loose as well as the features Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Carbon Copy, and the Last Dragon and a TON of Tv Shows. It was produced by Melvin Simon who also produced other hard-to-find movies such as Love At First Bite, When a Stranger Calls, The Stunt Man, My Bodyguard, Zorro the Gay Blade, Chu Chu and the Philly Flash and the 3 Porky’s movies. I’ve looked for most of these movies and I found it to be pretty hard to find any of them. Especially Scavenger Hunt, which only seems to be available on VHS, but will be released very soon on DVD and Blu-Ray: https://www.kinolorber.com/
