Enter Laughing (1967)

(On Cable TV, February 2021) The little-seen Enter Laughing (“never released on DVD or Blu-ray,” notes Wikipedia) is notable primarily for being writer-director Carl Reiner’s big-screen debut as a filmmaker. Adapted (indirectly) from Reiner’s own material, it features a delivery boy’s shaky entrance in theatrical show-business, as his lacklustre acting skills are no match for the attraction he creates in his leading lady and her influence over her father/producer. An early example of a comedy of humiliation, much of Enter Laughing’s jokes run at the expense of its lead character (played with wide-eyed innocence by Reni Santoni), who’s really not that bright nor gifted in the thespian arts. While a fine comic premise, there’s a sense that the joke is not just overdone, but wrung dry over the course of the film’s first two acts. It’s only at the very end, as all of the meticulously assembled setup finally pays off, that Enter Laughing becomes marginally funnier. The ending sequence makes good use of Mel Ferrer’s adeptness at portraying exasperation, and adopts a more slapstick approach relying equally on physical as verbal comedy. Enter Laughing is clearly best suited to audiences with theatrical experience — there’s an insider’s touch to the process of auditioning, dodgy off-Broadway troupes and horrifyingly unfortunate premieres that speaks to Reiner’s experience in the Manhattan comedy world. I eventually liked the result, but Enter Laughing took much longer to deliver the jokes than I expected. Fortunately, when it comes to making an impact, it’s far better to have audiences exit laughing.