I’m afraid the American movie house comedy is dead. Or at least it’s seriously limping, holding its side and pushing along an IV drip bag. And I can’t tell you how sad that development makes me.
There’s nothing quite like a good rollicking guffaw over a great comic line or a fabulous pratfalling visual in a fun film. I still remember an early childhood moment when I was sitting on my living room floor watching an old Jerry Lewis movie on TV, and the actor did some little goofy bit that took me so by surprise that I couldn’t stop laughing until my gut ached.
I’m not a Jerry Lewis superfan, nor would I call his brand of grins highbrow art. But compared to today’s breed of giggle pic, his stuff seems incredibly thoughtful. The truth is, just about every comedy I’ve reviewed lately has been a total bust when it comes to anything approaching even a whiff of wit or intelligence.
Oh, sure, pics like 22 Jump Street and Tammy (two of the tamer comic examples out now) have got the gross-out side of low humor down. The man-getting-frisky-with-a-monkey and an-old-woman-exposing-herself-to-a-crowd-of-lesbians kind of stuff. But that sort of schlock seems to be the only card Hollywood has in its drollery deck nowadays. There’s very little wordplay that isn’t filled with f-bombs and crudities. Sarcasm is replaced with shame-fests, parody is supplanted with gross-outs.
Now, I understand that the “shock/surprise” stuff and a little risqué wink-wink has been a part of comedy forever. But there are ways to deal with even that without relying on the repulsive or grotesque. Take for example the classic comedy Some Like It Hot. Now here’s an old Billy Wilder-written/directed film that’s packed with bits of content Plugged In would definitely point out to discerning family audiences even today. But, quite frankly, it dealt with its shock and wink-wink with finesse. Consider this closing scene between Jerry, who’s spent the majority of the film dressing in drag to hide out from a mob boss, and an eccentric millionaire named Osgood who has mistakenly fallen in love.
[View:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLW5jzHsW7c:550:0]
For those who didn’t watch the clip above, here’s the dialogue:
OSGOOD I called Mama—she was so happy she cried—she wants you to have her wedding gown—it’s white lace.
JERRY (steeling himself) Osgood—I can’t get married in your mother’s dress. She and I—we’re not built the same way.
OSGOOD We can have it altered.
JERRY (firmly) Oh no you don’t! Look, Osgood—I’m going to level with you. We can’t get married at all.
OSGOOD Why not?
JERRY Well, to begin with, I’m not a natural blonde.
OSGOOD (tolerantly) It doesn’t matter.
JERRY And I smoke. I smoke all the time.
OSGOOD I don’t care.
JERRY And I have a terrible past. For three years now, I’ve been living with a saxophone player.
OSGOOD I forgive you.
JERRY (with growing desperation) And I can never have children.
OSGOOD We’ll adopt some.
JERRY But you don’t understand! (he rips off his wig; in a male voice) I’m a MAN!
OSGOOD (oblivious) Well—nobody’s perfect.
That scene is essentially a single long-running joke setup with a spot-on punchline. And with Jack Lemmon and Joe E. Brown in the goofy roles, it was perfectly timed comic gold.
Can you even imagine how crassly and crudely a scene like that might be played out today?
You can blame the nasty change on a studio system whose templates demand an edgier product for the world market. Or a new generation of writers who have no experience with subtle humor. I can’t help but think, though, that the shift has come about thanks to a coarsening culture. Surprises are a staple of comedy. And when we’re surrounded by so much junk, comedy writers feel like they’ve got to make stuff junkier to surprise us. You know, if rush-to-the-bathroom hijinks have become old hat with the masses, then, hey, we’ll need to see an actual hat full of bathroom byproduct (as we did in A Million Ways to Die in the West) to get the crowd wincing and laughing again.
Maybe there’s still time for comedy to enter a renaissance phase before its true death rattle sounds. Humorist and columnist Erma Bombeck once said, “There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt.”
Bombeck was talking about a different sort of hurt, of course, but I hurt every time I have to review one of these modern, utterly uninspired R-rated comedies. Here’s hoping our movie fare can find its way back to the right side of that line.
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