Whither The Lads?
Yesterday I wrote that “nobody even thinks about Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis” these days “except for fans of Nick Tosches‘ Dino: Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams.” Which, of course, inspired a fresh attack from Some Came Running‘s Glenn Kenny .
Glenn wrote that I was “dying to throw a gratuitous insult at the ‘dweebs’ and ‘monks’ who value those Martin/Lewis films, but [am] also a little mindful of coming off like a closet Eloi. So [Wells] yokes the enthusiasm to the Tosches book, which he takes as some sort of signifier of cool, and posts, believing that he’s having it both ways. Insufferable, really.”
How’s that again?
I responded as follows: “I don’t know my Martin & Lewis films like I should (I like Sailor Beware and Artists & Models), but Tosches’ book — which IS an eternal signifier of cool as it continues to enjoy renown as one of the finest showbiz bios ever written — turned me on to the fabled genius of their live act when they were really hot & crackling — in the mid to late ’40s (and perhaps the very early ’50s).
“Martin & Lewis never really replicated on film what they struck with a match onstage, Tosches wrote. All I was saying in the post is that Martin & Lewis were comics of their time who aren’t, it seems, generally regarded, much less worshipped, as legendary world-class film comedians 70 years hence. (Largely because of the disparity between their nightclub act vs. films. ) Maybe the tide is turning and one day Average Joes will think of them in the same light as the Marx Brothers or Laurel & Hardy. All I was saying is that right now that regard doesn’t seem to be out there. Am I wrong?
From their Wikipedia bio: “In 1945, Dean Martin met a young comic named Jerry Lewis at the Glass Hat Club in New York, where both men were performing. Martin and Lewis’ official debut together occurred at Atlantic City’s 500 Club on July 24, 1946, and they were not a hit. The owner, Skinny D’Amato, warned them that if they didn’t come up with a better act for their second show later that same night, they would be fired.
“Huddling together out in the alley behind the club, Lewis and Martin agreed to go for broke, to throw out the pre-scripted gags that hadn’t worked and to basically just improvise their way through the act. Dean sang some songs, and Jerry came out dressed as a busboy, dropping plates and more or less making a shambles of both Martin’s performance and the club’s sense of decorum. They did slapstick, reeled off old vaudeville jokes, and did whatever else popped into their heads at the moment. This time, the audience doubled over in laughter.
“Their success at the 500 led to a series of well-paying engagements up and down the Eastern seaboard, culminating with a triumphant run at New York’s Copacabana. Club patrons were convulsed by the act, which consisted primarily of Lewis interrupting and heckling Martin while he was trying to sing, and ultimately the two of them chasing each other around the stage and having as much fun as possible.
“The secret, they have both said, is that they essentially ignored the audience and played to one another.”
To get a sense of the Martin and Lewis that KILLED at nightclubs, it’s necessary to seek out not their films, which far too often were leavened by Hal Wallis’s meaty hands, but their appearances on TV’s Colgate Comedy Hour. M&L comprised one of four rotating hosts on that Sunday night show for a few years, and they were the only hosts to outdraw Ed Sullivan regularly.
The anarchic frenzy of the shows in Atlantic City, Slapsie Maxie’s, the Flamingo and the Copa is clear to see in many moments — improv, breaking the fourth wall, corpsing. You see their costars — some quite experienced veterans — cracking up and unable to hold their acting faces. And you also see quite palpable affection between the two of them: real smiles when they look at each other.
Somewhere in my Jerry Lewis book Peter Bogdanovich told me that Orson Welles claimed M&L in the early days were the funniest thing he had ever seen on stage anywhere. BUt, as I say, the dreary films (very often remakes of rom-coms with Jerry taking the role originally played by the leading lady) were dull with a handful of worthwhile exceptions — the two FRank Tashlin films, most notably.
Oh, and Jerry’s original name for the act at the 500 Club that summer? “Sex and Slapstick.”
Good luck finding anyone under 30 in North America who knows who Laurel and Hardy are either, since their best work ( ie the silent and sound shorts ) is pretty much unavailable on DVD in North America. At least the Marx Brothers are pretty much covered on DVD since they made features but I doubt they have much awareness with the younger demographic either.
(Accidentally sent the above from preview.)
As a result of this very real gap between the stage M&L and the film M&L, I think it’s true that their reputation for sheer laugh-out-loud capers has faded. And I can tell you that there are far fewer real aficionados of Jerry (here and in France) that seems reasonable. Dean is definitely still an icon, but pictured in that status mainly alongside Frank Sinatra and Sammy DAvis Jr. And Jerry is best known for his solo work. It’s as if Lennon and McCartney had made their best music AFTER the Beatles broke up.
(One interesting thing about Dean: he went from being Jerry’s straightman to playing the ditz/drank next to Frank and was exquisite as both. And, BTW, both of his partners in those acts were North Jersey only children with awful tempers. Just sayin….)
The best M&L films, in my view: “My Friend Irma,” “The Stooge,” “The Caddy,” and the Tashlins: “Artists and Models” and “Hollywood or Bust.” “Three Ring Circus,” which gave rise to this conversation, is dreadful, but Dean does get to choose between Joanne Dru and the lovely young Zsa Zsa Gabor (who was courted by Porfirio Rubirosa on the set in Phoenix — DURING his honeymoon with Barbara Hutton, which is a whole ‘nother story….).
Shawn Levy didn’t mention the title of his book in the post above, or provide a link. It’s called “King of Comedy: The Life and Art of Jerry Lewis.”
http://www.amazon.com/King-Comedy-Life-Jerry-Lewis/dp/0312168780
Ah, Jeff. “All I was saying is that right now that regard doesn’t seem to be out there. Am I wrong?”
I seem to be encountering all sorts of people this week who claim that somebody said something they didn’t actually say, or did not say something they actually said. Of course Martin and Lewis aren’t as well-regarded today as they were in their box office heyday. (And I’ll tell you another thing: today’s Average Joes don’t give that much of a damn about Field and the Marxes the way guys like us did; try playing a Marx Brothers movie to a random raised-on-MTVer and despair.) None of these things are in dispute. Only what you actually wrote was entirely different: “Nobody except for fans of Nick Tosches’ Dino: Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams even thinks about Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, much less 3-Ring Circus.” Call me a literal-minded jackass, but when I read the word “nobody,” I expect that the person who wrote it meant “nobody,” or, in your case, nobody except fans of Tosches book. And there are a fair number of folks who hold the Tashlin-directed Martin and Lewis films in pretty high regard while not caring much for Tosches book. I am not one of them, mind you. I like “Dino” very much indeed, and the riff comparing Martin to Hemingway (on page 308 of my signed hardcover edition) cracks me up every time.
Such drollery, these Sunday afternoon squabbles.
Everyone knows that when you say “nobody” does this or is aware of that you’re speaking figuratively. For heaven’s sake. When I’m told that this or that person is “out to lunch,” for example, my immediate presumption is that they’re not sitting at some diner eating a BLT.
“…overly exacting about the English language…yeesh.” Whatever you say, Jeff. That’s not all that far from your former friend Mr. Poland’s pronouncement that ideas matter more than spelling does. You guys are closer than you’d like to admit.
Also, your analogy (that “nobody” equals “out to lunch”) is (there’s no other word for it!) fucked.
But enough of this fol de rol. It’s off to the overpriced gayest gym for me!
I bailed on Equinox, by the way. I decided to go Crunch — much cheaper, same result — just no laundry service.
I’m sticking with them for a little while longer just to spite them. Long story.
This thread is weird.
I’d get all defensive about being under 30 and knowing certain acts that many of my contemporaries don’t know, but then again, the last time I saw a lot of that stuff was on VHS on comedy special 2 hr bonanzas…
I guess I should invest in this DVD thing eh?
Thinking of Jerry Lewis reminded me of his film “The Day the Clown Cried,” There is a good account of it in Shawn Levy’s book. There was also an article in Spy magazine years ago where actor Harry Shearer, one of the few to have actually seen it, said the film was “perfect” in its awfulness
I love this thread. Good stuff, Shawn. Thanks.
If only they had made one dead-on, full out classic film. Just one. (as opposed to some decent ones, a couple of funny ones, and several “eh” ones)
Imagine them winding up in something like “Some Like it Hot”.
Travis –
Excellent call on “SLIH” — as I first learned after writing the book, Jerry claims to have been offered a part in that film by Billy Wilder. And it was made so soon after the M&L split (and before the Rat Pack summit) that anyone in the biz would have tried to yoke Dean in if Jerry had said yes.
Haven’t read DINO yet (I know, I know), but “King of Comedy: The Life and Art of Jerry Lewis.” is a killer, a great, moving, thoughtful read that ends with an unforgettable confrontation between writer and subject. DINO has been on my read list for years and this thread reminds me how overdue that read is.
lay the blame on all of this on the death of the Indie UHF channel and the birth of infomercials. There was a time when an Indie Channel would book a week of Martin and Lewis flicks for the 8 p.m. or 4 p.m. movie slot (along with Elvis, Godzilla and Don Knotts flicks). But this no longer happens. So an entire generation hasn’t had the chance to stumble across these films on their TV dial.
Luckily there are DVDs of most of the Martin and Lewis films (Legend put out Money From Home and numerous PD copies are out for At War with the Army), but where is 3 Ring Circus? The problem with DVD is that you pretty much have to already be a fan willing to spend the big bucks for the 2 volumes which Paramount released (and are they really out of print?).
This thread is weird.
I’d get all defensive about being under 30 and knowing certain acts that many of my contemporaries don’t know, but then again, the last time I saw a lot of that stuff was on VHS on comedy special 2 hr bonanzas…
I guess I should invest in this DVD thing eh?
Has anyone ever heard the profanity-laced radip commercial outtakes M&L did for “The Caddy”?
Good stuff.
Jeff, when you say “nobody” “everybody” takes it as you being dismissive or inflammatory.
Travis, great call on the uncensored THE CADDY radio spot outtakes. “Go see THE CADDY…with a GREAT BIG C*** on it!”
Before Paramount’s home video division was sacked and replaced with DreamWorks personnel whose idea of nostalgia is 1985, they were really pushing the Lewis legacy, both with their two Martin & Lewis sets (which sadly ommitted AT WAR WITH THE ARMY, still stuck in PD Hell, and THREE RING CIRCUS), and relicensing many of the solo Jerry outings that he was given ownership of by Barney Balaban in the ’60′s (though they are still sitting on THE SAD SACK, VISIT TO A SMALL PLANET, and ROCK-A-BYE BABY). I’m hoping maybe Paramount’s upcoming sublicense package with Olive Films will lead to some of these finally emerging.
Patrick – the young people who still remember Laurel and Hardy and/or the Marx brothers are the ones whose parents made a point of watching them when they’re on television. But the DVD generation will have missed out to an extent, yes.
MBT Schuhe
?！UGG boots Sale ,Enjoy free shipping + stilbargain sale now!
The problem with DVD is that you pretty much have to already be a fan willing to spend the big bucks for the 2 volumes which Paramount released (and are they really out of print?).
yeah they’re out of print, so’s the Lewis solo box (which also had The Stooge for some reason) and all the standalone releases
but hey, we’re getting another Blu-ray edition of the Italian Job remake, way to go Paramount
“Nobody goes there anymore. it’s too crowded.”–L. P. Berra
Almost any situation —good or bad— is affected by the cheap prada shoes attitude we bring to.