Carl Reiner

  • Oh, God! (1977)

    Oh, God! (1977)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2021) If you’re reading this review in the hope of learning a reason to see Oh, God!, it’s not that complicated: George Burns as God. That’s your reason. The story may be a circa-1977 take on how a divine message would be perceived by humanity, but the film’s big draw is Burns playing (a representation of) God, talking to a most unlikely messenger and trying to get him to spread his gospel. It’s sacrilegious and surprisingly faithful at once, tweaking traditional doctrine but reinforcing moral values at once, and reserving its biggest criticism for hypocritical televangelists. Director Carl Reiner does justice to a script that’s not specifically comic nor all that profound, remaining to the gentle amiability of the proceedings. John Denver is not bad in the lead role and Terry Garr is her usual self in a supporting role, but Burns steals the show — he’s the most remarkable character, gets all of the best lines (including some great ad-libs, we’re told) and plays the role with impeccable comic timing. I dimly remembered at least the concept for the film from childhood trips to the video store, but I’m not sure I saw more than the courtroom scene. In any case, the result is pleasant without being hilarious — but the result does feel smarter than the average Hollywood comedy, so there’s that. Plus Burns as God, obviously.

  • Where’s Poppa? (1970)

    Where’s Poppa? (1970)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2021) There are two problems with Where’s Poppa? — the first being that its transgressive humour doesn’t seem so shocking today, the second being that it probably wasn’t all that successful in 1970 either. This story of a man trying to get rid of an unbearable mother pretty much takes you where you’d expect a black comedy to go, and those places are far darker by default in 2021 than they were back then. (This being said, I don’t think many films even today would try to, let alone get, a chuckle out of a line like “You raped a cop?!”)  The film is mildly entertaining but not particularly funny. I strongly suspect that the film’s ugly cinematography, straight out of utterly unfunny 1970s Manhattan grittiness, is not conductive to a lighthearted tone. (This is not helped by the film’s sorry lack of restoration — even standard-bearer TCM broadcast a distinctly rough-looking print with cropped edges, muddy resolution and washed-out colours.)  It’s perhaps best approached as one title on director Carl Reiner’s long and often uneven filmography — they’re not all winners, but in total they do showcase a wide-ranging comic sensibility capable of the best as well as the most pandering. In that context, Where’s Poppa? is far from being the worst thing on his resumé. If praise must be given, the film does have the distinction of avoiding being irritating despite the dark subject matter — but given that it settles for humdrum mediocrity, it’s not much of a victory.

  • The Comic (1969)

    The Comic (1969)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2021) There’s a lot to like in The Comic for fans of early silent comedy — with Dick Van Dyke playing a silent comedian struggling to stay relevant in a world moving forward, the film ends up being a melancholic take on the careers of people such as Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, whose careers never quite adapted to the sound era. Still, let’s not read too much into the film’s character as a version of those two — the protagonist here is a terrible person marginally made tolerable by a talent for a very specific kind of physical comedy that became far less popular after the end of silent cinema. The rest of the film, narrated from the casket, doesn’t get any better for him — divorce follows his adultery, his son disappears from his life and a trip to Europe doesn’t improve his fortune at all. It’s not hard to understand why Dick Van Dyke is perfect for the role, as he plays the slapstick perfectly in silent film sequences faithfully re-created by writer/director Carl Reiner — aside from the too-good visual quality, you’d swear those were real silent films. There’s also quite a bit of more dramatic material for Van Dyke to play, as his character just keeps digging himself deeper into a hole and refuses to move on with the times while alienating everyone who does. (This is where the Keaton comparisons most definitely end — Keaton’s fall from grace had more to do with a bad contract that led to many damaging outcomes, such as alcoholism: he otherwise kept working until his death, including as a gagman to MGM and a mentor to younger comedians such as Red Skelton.)  This is another entry in the sad-films-about-comedians subgenre but it’s not entirely glum nor unjustified: the lead character is not admirable outside his performances, and the entire film feels closer to tragedy than humiliation. The post-mortem narration does help take the edge off, obviously, although I don’t think that the film quite closes the loop on that. Still, while The Comic is not as funny an experience as many would like (the final shot is a big sad statement), there’s quite a bit here for fans of Van Dyke, Reiner or silent cinema to chew on.

  • All of Me (1984)

    All of Me (1984)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2021) While it may not be mentioned as often as The Jerk or Roxanne or other Martin films between 1979 and 1988, All of Me is just as representative of Steve Martin’s earlier, funnier film performances. (Its lower profile probably comes from the fact that Martin isn’t credited with co-writing the script.)  While its body-possessing premise may not be as cheerfully absurdist as other Martin films of the time, it does let him perform several sequences of pure body comedy. Playing a meek man whose body ends up half-possessed by a rich heiress, Martin pulls out all the stops in showing a man half-controlling his movements, with the other half freaking out at the predicament. Much of the good stuff, however, takes place in the buildup of the film — perhaps sensing overexposure, the body comedy gradually leaves enough space for a strong comic narrative in tie for a satisfying ending. Martin gets some astonishing support from Lily Tomlin as the heiress whose possession plans ran amuck — Director Carl Reiner keeps her in the film long after her death by having her show up in mirrors to talk to Martin’s protagonist, leading to a final shot that becomes a likable romantic flourish on top of the entire film. The entire film is in a slightly different comic register than other Martin movies, but it holds up very well even today, and probably deserves a bit more attention — the best sequences are anthology-worthy.

  • Enter Laughing (1967)

    Enter Laughing (1967)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (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.

  • The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming (1966)

    The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming (1966)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, February 2020) I’m always baffled when acclaimed films fail to meet their own hype, and I really would not have expected a broad humanist comedy to be so… dull? But the case of The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming may be unique as well—a comedy directed by Norman Jewison, it was an attempt to find common humanity with the then-fearsome Soviets. Half a century and the end of the Cold War later, it’s not quite as striking or relevant. What played like gangbusters and won critics over in 1966 feels either obvious or hopelessly dated by 2020. Oh, it’s still amusing (the premise of a Soviet sub running aground in New England and its crew “invading” a small village remains high-concept), but I’m not sure I cracked a single laugh during the entire film. Since a lot of the jokes revolve around the same idea, the film quickly becomes repetitive. Some elements still work just right: Alan Arkin (in his big-screen debut) has plenty of his youthful energy as a Russian, while notables such as Carl Reiner, Eva Marie Saint and Brian Keith are featured ensemble players. I don’t usually have trouble putting myself into the mindset of a specific era, but that proved more difficult than usual in The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming—absent the era’s specific quirks, it feels hollow and underwhelming.

  • Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982)

    Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, January 2000) I can testify that Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid works pretty well as a comedy without catching any of its references to the noir genre it’s so obviously parodying. This fabulous cinematic experiment intercuts actual scenes from classic 1930-1950 films into its own B/W footage, and so includes Steve Martin and the gorgeous Rachel Ward interacting with the great Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Vincent Price, Cary Grant, Greta Garbo… and a few others. It presumably blows the mind of the fans of these type of films, but as a total neophyte to this period, I though the film was pretty darn successful without knowing the references. You’ve got to love the recurring tie gag.

    (On DVD, November 2021) How interesting it is to revisit Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid after watching a few hundred noir films – the basic comedy of the film is still the same, but now I can recognize the actors, and sometimes even the clips used by Carl Reiner and Steve Martin in putting together their homage. The distinction of the film is not only having Martin play a private investigator in 1940s Los Angeles, but especially having him interact (through clips from older movies) with Classic Hollywood actors. While the film features a heroic re-creation effort in set design, cinematography and costuming (sometimes from people who had worked on the original films, such as Edith Head!), the difference between the original and new footage is quite obvious on DVD: Since Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid was shot in 1980s widescreen and the original footage is in 4:3 “Academy ratio,” the older footage is zoomed into widescreen format and the grain difference is perceptible. Still, that doesn’t do much to lessen the fun of Martin arguing over the phone with Barbara Stanwyck, telling Humphrey Bogart what tie to wear, sharing a train cabin with Cary Grant or getting hit on by Joan Crawford. While the film’s first two acts can often feel disconnected as the protagonist goes investigating and lands in separate films, the last act is more cohesive given how it borrows much of the sequences from The Bribe. While the comedy has its ups and downs, it’s all good fun – and having the beautiful Rachel Ward as the original-footage femme fatale doesn’t hurt either. Martin sports dark hair and is a good sport about the silliness asked of him – Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid is clearly part of his early-1980s heyday as a film comedian, and still a funny film today… although it’s a different kind of funny for film noir fans.