Michael Schultz

Directing

Michael Schultz

Born 1938-11-10 · Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA

Schultz was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the son of Katherine Frances (née Leslie), a factory worker, and German American Leo Schultz, an insurance salesman. After his undergraduate work at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Marquette University, he attended Princeton University, where in 1966 he directed his first play, a production of Waiting for Godot. He joined the Negro Ensemble Company in 1968, which brought him to Broadway in 1969. His breakthrough was directing Lorraine Hansberry's To Be Young, Gifted and Black, which he restaged for television in 1972. Schultz' earliest film projects combined low comedy with profound social comment (Honeybaby, Honeybaby and Cooley High), reaching a peak with the ensemble comedy Car Wash (1976) and Which Way Is Up? (1977), starring Richard Pryor. In 1978, Schultz took the reins of the musical Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band with the largest budget ever entrusted to an African-American film director to that date. However, upon its release, the project was a commercial and critical failure. Schultz would go on to make prominent films such as Scavenger Hunt (1979), Carbon Copy (1981), and Disorderlies (1987). More recently, Schultz has worked in television, piloting episodes of such style-conscious series as The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles and Picket Fences, as well as an abundance of made-for-TV movies. In 1991, Schultz was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame.

Acting credits

Behind the camera

The Last Dragon poster
6.5

A young man searches for the "master" to obtain the final level of martial arts mastery known as the glow. Along the way he must fight an evil martial arts expert and rescue a beautiful singer from an obsessed music promoter.

The Last Dragon

1985

Greased Lightning poster
6.4

The true life story of Wendell Scott, the first black stock car racing driver to win an upper-tier NASCAR race.

Greased Lightning

1977

The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Hollywood Follies poster
5.7

While working for a Hollywood movie studio, Indy finds that he is no match for the wily megalomaniacal director Erich von Stroheim when the two lock horns over the ever increasing budget of Stroheim's film Foolish Wives. Though battered by the film industry, Indy decides to give it one more chance and goes on a location shoot with legendary director John Ford. Ford and his cronies, including aging gunman Wyatt Earp, help him see the magic of movies and moviemaking, and when an actor is accidentally killed, Indy pitches in to save the film.

The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Hollywood Follies

1994

Disorderlies poster
4.9

As not-quite-orderlies who're downright Disorderlies, rap-music favorites The Fat Boys rule. Playing the freewheeling caretakers of the frail Dennison, they stir up a comedic culture clash in Palm Beach society that only proves laughter is the best medicine this side of a tax refund.

Disorderlies

1987

Disorderlies poster
4.9

As not-quite-orderlies who're downright Disorderlies, rap-music favorites The Fat Boys rule. Playing the freewheeling caretakers of the frail Dennison, they stir up a comedic culture clash in Palm Beach society that only proves laughter is the best medicine this side of a tax refund.

Disorderlies

1987

The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Winds of Change poster
5.8

Following World War I, Indy - now fluent in several languages - works as a translator at the controversial Paris Peace Conference, where he once more meets Lawrence of Arabia, and encounters the Arab Prince Faisal and a young Ho Chi Minh. Disillusioned by the hard and cynical realpolitik of international deal-making, he returns home to Princeton, New Jersey after a three-year absence, where he finds his father as cold and distant as ever, and discovers a detrimental change in his boyhood friend, Paul Robeson, caused by bigotry.

The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Winds of Change

2000

Krush Groove poster
6.4

Russell Walker is a young, successful manager of rap performers, handling acts for the Krush Groove label, including Run-DMC and The Fat Boys. When Run-D.M.C. has a hit record and Russell needs more money to press more copies, he borrows it from a street hustler and soon regrets his decision.

Krush Groove

1985

Krush Groove poster
6.4

Russell Walker is a young, successful manager of rap performers, handling acts for the Krush Groove label, including Run-DMC and The Fat Boys. When Run-D.M.C. has a hit record and Russell needs more money to press more copies, he borrows it from a street hustler and soon regrets his decision.

Krush Groove

1985

The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Travels with Father poster
6.1

While visiting Russia on his father’s lecture tour, Indy runs off on his own and meets Leo Tolstoy. Later, on a trip to Athens, Indy and his father are forced together by circumstance when they get into a bind in the monasteries of Meteora, where they share some memorable moments.

The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Travels with Father

1996

The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: My First Adventure poster
5.8

While traveling with his father's world-wide lecture tour, nine-year-old Indiana Jones encounters an ancient mummy and a fresh corpse at an archaeological dig in the Egyptian Valley of the Kings. After solving the mystery, with help from Lawrence of Arabia, Indy is kidnapped by slave traders and taken across the Sahara to the slave market at Marrakech, where all his newly-honed wits are needed to escape.

The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: My First Adventure

2000

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band poster
4.3

A small town band makes it big, but loses track of their roots, as they get caught up into the big-time machinations of the music biz. Now, they must thwart a plot to destroy their home town. Built around the music of The Beatles, this musical uses some big name groups like Peter Frampton and Aerosmith.

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

1978

Car Wash poster
6.0

This day-in-the-life cult comedy focuses on a group of friends working at Sully Boyar's Car Wash in the Los Angeles ghetto. The team meets dozens of eccentric customers -- including a smooth-talking preacher, a wacky cab driver and an ex-convict -- while cracking politically incorrect jokes to a constant soundtrack of disco and funk. Some of the workers find romance as the day moves along, but most are just happy to get through another shift.

Car Wash

1976

Timestalkers poster
5.4

History professor Scott McKenzie makes an anachronistic discovery in a photograph from the Old West and he is soon joined by beautiful time-traveler Georgia in a time-skipping adventure to stop her colleague from the future from erasing her from existence.

Timestalkers

1987

Scavenger Hunt poster
5.6

An eccentric games inventor dies and leaves behind an inheritance worth hundreds of millions of dollars - which will only be given to the person or team, amongst his family and hired help, who wins a madcap scavenger hunt.

Scavenger Hunt

1979

Carbon Copy poster
5.8

A middle-aged married wealthy white corporate executive is surprised to discover that he has a working-class black teen-age son who wants to be adopted into the almost-exclusively-white upper-middle-class community of San Marino, California.

Carbon Copy

1981

Cooley High poster
7.0

In the mid-1960s, a group of high school friends who live on the Near North Side of Chicago enjoy life to the fullest...parties, hanging out, meeting new friends. Then life changes for two of the guys when they are falsely arrested in connection with stealing a Cadillac. We follow their lives through to the dramatic end of high school.

Cooley High

1975

L.A. Law: The Movie poster
6.7

Reunion movie from the popular TV series reunites most of the original cast from the Los Angeles law firm of McKenzie-Brackman. In the eight years since the series ended, the founding senior partner, Leland McKenzie, has retired and left Douglas Brackman, Jr. as the senior managing partner. New employees to the firm are Brackman's over-achieving son Jason, who's at odds with his father, and ambitious and conniving associate Chloe Carpenter at odds with others. Former partner Michael Kuzak, now a successful restaurant owner, is called out of retirement to help stop the impeding execution of a former client on death row and the opposing counsel is Kuzak's old flame Grace Van Owen.

L.A. Law: The Movie

2002

The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Tales of Innocence poster
5.8

In Italy, Indy's espionage work takes him behind enemy lines where he embarks on an important propaganda assignment that he hopes will bring a swift end to the war. Along the way, he engages in a comic rivalry with Ernest Hemingway over the affections of a beautiful Italian girl. After being wounded in action, Indy is transferred to North Africa where he joins the French Foreign Legion. While trying to uncover the identity of a traitor in his own ranks, Indy battles hostile Berber tribesmen and engages in an innocent flirtation with author Edith Wharton.

The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Tales of Innocence

1999

Woman Thou Art Loosed poster
5.5

An adaptation of Bishop T.D. Jakes' self-help novel, chronciling a woman's struggle to come to terms with her legacy of abuse, addiction and poverty.

Woman Thou Art Loosed

2004

Which Way Is Up? poster
5.8

Orange picker Leroy Jones inadvertently becomes a union leader and is forced out of town, leaving behind his sex-obsessed father, Rufus, and timid spouse, Annie Mae. He heads for Los Angeles, where he falls for union organizer Vanetta. Annie Mae seeks solace from local preacher Lenox Thomas, who eventually impregnates her. When Leroy catches wind, he heads home for a showdown with Lenox.

Which Way Is Up?

1977

The Spirit poster
4.9

A legally dead police detective decides to battle crime as a masked superhero.

The Spirit

1987

Tarzan in Manhattan poster
4.0

Tarzan goes to New York to rescue the chimp Cheetah, who has been captured by an evil animal experimenter. There, he teams up with Jane, a cab driver and daughter of an ex-cop private eye, who help Tarzan free Cheetah and his friends.

Tarzan in Manhattan

1989

The Jerk, Too poster
4.5

Navin Johnson heads to Los Angeles to attend the wedding of his pen pal, Marie. On the way, he runs across a gang of hobos whose leader, Diesel, takes him to Las Vegas after learning of his skills at poker.

The Jerk, Too

1984

Jury Duty: The Comedy poster
2.5

Mild and meek accountant Sanford Lagelfost has been charged with embezzling $3 million dollars from Trout Industries. A decidedly mixed bag of jurors are chosen to serve on the case, including Eddie, a waiter; Rita, a high-priced call girl; Phil, a high-powered businessman; and Abby, a rabble rousing ex-hippie. When the star witness, the voluptuous Hope Hathaway, takes the stand, she startles everyone with her stories of Sanford's Lothario-esque conquests. Suddenly, the unassuming Sanford is a celebrity heartthrob and he finds himself in headlines and gossip columns across the country. Due to the case's growing notoriety, the judge sequesters the jury. And things start to get wild...

Jury Duty: The Comedy

1990