Schultebrand JoBeth Williams as Meredith Miguel Ángel Suárez as Jesus Ramirez Craig T. Nelson as Deputy Warden Ward Wilson Barry Corbin as Warden Walter Beatty Charles Weldon as Blade Nicolas Coster as Warden Henry Sampson Joel Brooks as Len Garber Jonathan Banks as Jack Graham Erland Van Lidth as Grossberger Lewis Van Bergen as Guard #1 Franklyn Ajaye as Young Man in Hospital Cedrick Hardman as Big Mean Luis Ávalos as Chico Esther Sutherland as Sissie Pamela Poitier as Mavis Claudia Cron as Joy Grand L. Bush as Slowpoke Alvin Ing as Doctor Herbert Hirschman as Man at Dinner Party Mickey Jones as Guard #8 Billy Beck as Flycatching Prisoner Lee Purcell as Susan Production The film was shot in Manhattan, New York; Burbank, California; St. George, Utah Florence and Tucson, Arizona in 56 days from March 13 to May 23, 1980. With Stir Crazy, Pryor became the first black actor to earn a million dollars for a single film. Reception Box office The film was a box office success, setting a record opening week for Columbia Pictures of $12,972,131 and then setting a studio record $15,336,245 the following week, including a studio record single day gross of $3,237,279. It went on to gross $101,300,000, being the third-highest-grossing film of 1980, behind The Empire Strikes Back and 9 to 5. It was Columbia's third film to gross $100 million and third highest-grossing film of all time, after Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Kramer vs. Kramer. The box office total marked the first time a film directed by an African-American earned more than $100 million. Critical response On Rotten Tomatoes, Stir Crazy has an approval rating of 69% based on 16 reviews. On Metacritic it has a score of 56% based on reviews from 6 critics. Roger Ebert gave the film two stars out of four and wrote that it "starts strong", but "once Wilder and Pryor are thrown into prison, it seems to lose its way" as "the movie gets bogged down in developing its own plot. That is not always the best thing for a comedy to do, because if we're not laughing, it hardly matters what happens to the plot." Vincent Canby of The New York Times panned the film as "a prison comedy of quite stunning humorlessness" which "appears to have been improvised, badly, more often than written." Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times