Crowning the King of Comedy

We’re all aware, at least if we watch American television, that right now talk-show hosts are something of an endangered species. Gone are the days when a man like Johnny Carson (or Jay Leno) was a friendly face in our living rooms, poking impish fun at celebrities and politicians without fear of retribution. Now Stephen Colbert’s months at CBS are numbered. And Jimmy Kimmel seemed to have gotten the axe when the powers-that-be disapproved of one of his jokes. (Surprisingly, the backlash was such that he was quickly reinstated.)

 But itl makes you wonder why anyone would risk it all to tell jokes on late-night television.  What exactly is the attraction? The money? The laughs? The opportunity to take on the status quo? The need, pure and simple, to connect with an audience?

 These thoughts flitted through my mind as I sat down to watch an unlikely 1982 film by Martin Scorsese, one that contains no gangsters and no boxers. (Yes, there’s a taxi-driver or two, but not in a role of any significance.) You could say, though, that this—like so many other Scorsese projects—is a film about an obsession. Robert De Niro, starring in his fifth film for Scorsese, plays Rupert Pupkin, an intense young man determined to make it as a stand-up comedian. None other than Jerry Lewis, then in his fifties, plays Jerry Langford, a comedian of the Carson ilk with a wide base of adoring fans. By happenstance, Pupkin protects Langford from a frenzied mob, then tries to worm his way into the great man’s home and heart as a way of launching his own career as a comedian. What does he want? To commence his own climb to fame and fortune via the opening spot on Langford’s nightly broadcast. How does he go about achieving this? With the manic determination that marks so many Scorsese protagonists. And, of course, a little touch of mayhem.

 It's fun to see De Niro, hyper-familiar in brutal parts, desperately playing at being ingratiating. And Lewis, eschewing his usual comic shtik, is convincing as a very private man forced to make nice, much against his nature, to someone who has obviously gone off the rails. For me the big surprise is comedian Sandra Bernhard, who essentially plays De Niro’s partner in crime, working her own surprisingly sexual obsession with Langford while helping clear the way for Pupkin’s leap into the big time.

 This is not, despite its title, a movie that is full of chuckles. But it does use very black humor to probe the excesses of fandom, something which continues—thanks to the Internet—to be more and more a part of our everyday world.  The King of Comedy builds to a climax and then a coda that have aroused much discussion: the movie doesn’t end in the likeliest of ways. Some moviegoers (like me) have appreciated its heavy-duty irony; others are not so sure.

 Admirers of Scorsese are apparently divided on the merits of this film. Some critics of the day embraced De Niro’s character as the flip side of Taxi Driver’s Travis Bickle; others (including the influential Pauline Kael) were convinced Scorsese had lost his way. If Wikipedia is to be believed, such cinema wonderworkers as Akira Kurosawa and Wim Wenders have ranked The King of Comedy among their very favorite films. Fans in today’s Hollywood include Steve Carell and Jack Black, who would like to star in a remake. I don’t suspect that this will happen anytime soon, if ever. But the nature of comedy, as a subject, never truly grows old. 

 

In Search of Jerry Lewis

Since the death of Jerry Lewis on August 20, I’ve been debating about what to say in his memory. I can’t pretend I was a number-one fan, and like most of Hollywood I don’t share in the passion of French critics and audiences for this hard-working multihyphenate (comedian-actor-writer-director-producer-philanthropist). In the name of research, I went back to two of his best-known films.

The King of Comedy, from 1982, is an unusual Martin Scorsese film both because nobody gets violently blown away and because the leading man is, of all things, a would-be comedian. He’s played by Scorsese favorite Robert De Niro, in the pathetic role of a nebbish who’s convinced he has the comic chops to score as a Johnny Carson-type TV comic. He’s so desperate to ingratiate himself with the reigning king of late night, Jerry Langford, that he resorts to kidnapping (not exactly an ideal career move). The role of Langford, I’m told, was originally offered to Carson himself, and other comic actors were also considered before the part fell into the hands of Jerry Lewis. He plays Langford as a powerful but exasperated figure, all too weary of the hangers-on (like De Niro’s Rupert Pupkin) who complicate his personal life. There’s a memorable moment that’s apparently taken from Lewis’s actual experience: when he rebuffs an old lady who demands an autograph during a high-pressure moment, she screams after him, “"You should only get cancer," 

Lewis plays his role convincingly, but I don’t understand the hoopla surrounding it. Some of his devoted fans insist that in The King of Comedy he really reveals serious acting chops. Lewis never grasped their enthusiasm, maintaining that he was pretty much playing himself. And so it seems. Lewis’s reputation in Hollywood was that of a tough taskmaster, though one who could also be hugely generous to his inner circle. Remarkably, I was once told by Scott Wilson, who made his mark as one of the killers in In Cold Blood, that early in his career he was offered the chance to be Lewis’s regular stand-in. Wanting to succeed as an actor, he turned the gig down, though he knew this was a great opportunity: Lewis’s stand-ins were well-treated, and often graduated into producer positions. 

Continuing my exploration of Lewis’s career, I watched what is considered his very best comic role, The Nutty Professor. In this 1963 triumph, a brainy but nerdy scientist concocts a potion that turns him into a handsome lounge lizard named Buddy Love. It’s all pretty silly, but Lewis—influenced by his youthful admiration for Spencer Tracy’s transformation scene in the 1941 version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde—has a nifty moment when suave Buddy Love evolves on-camera into the clumsy but lovable Dr. Julius Kelp. It’s remarkable how seamlessly he evolves from the cocky and surprisingly handsome Buddy to the tongue-tied, hunched-over Kelp (who, amazingly enough, manages to win the love of a voluptuous but sweet co-ed played by Stella Stevens).

What I remember best about Jerry Lewis is how much my family loved him when he appeared on early television. He was at his funniest when his goofy antics played off against the suave presence of Dean Martin. They made some great movies as a duo, but I went in search of a catchphrase I’d almost forgot: “Donnnn’t lick it.” Thanks to YouTube, I ultimately found a sample of the early Jerry Lewis who had my parents and me in stitches. You don’t have to be French to be tickled by this skit from the Colgate Comedy Hour, circa 1951. It’s live TV at its looniest.