Rita Moreno will admit to some similarities with that great, comic character Googie Gomez, who she played in the film version of Terrence McNally‘s play The Ritz. They are both survivors, they are not losers, and they will both always come out on top.
Moreno certainly came out on top - she won a Tony Award, for her original stage performance as Googie, in 1975, and was the star turn of Richard Lester’s film version of McNally’s play, the following year.
The Ritz tells the story of Gaetano Proclo (Jack Weston), hiding out from the Mafia at a gay bath house. The film crackled with McNally’s superb dialog, and the brilliant performances from Moreno and Weston, with the support of Treat Williams, F. Murray Abraham and Jerry Stiller.
In this interview, from December 1976, Miss Moreno and director, Mr. Lester discuss their roles in the making of this cult film, which certainly deserves to be rediscovered a great comedy classic.
A shameless plug for Jerry Sadowitz’s new show at the Leicester Square Theater, London, December 2012.
Strange that after all these years that one of the funniest comedians in the world should receive some of the attention he rightly deserves, all because of a recording he made twenty-five years ago.
Thankfully Mr. Sadowitz (‘Comedian, Magician, Psychopath’) will be touring the UK in the New Year, so those who haven’t seen him can find out what they’ve been missing.
‘There is a nude orgy scene, but I don’t actually strap myself on to anything of the female nature,’ Dudley Moore tells Valerie Singleton about his latest film 10 in this interview from Tonight in Town in 1979.
While his comedy partner, Peter Cook has little to do but smoke cigarettes and rehearse the sidekick role he’d soon be performing, a few year’s down the line, for Joan Rivers’ chat show in 1986.
Thankfully, after a brief chat, Cook is allowed show off his mercurial, comic talents in an improvised sketch with Moore. It’s not classic Pete ‘n’ Dud, but it’s still worth watching, as so much of what these two comedy greats made has been sadly lost.
Bonus - seldom seen ‘Not Only, But Also’ sketch, after the jump…
Blake Edwards claimed making the Pink Panther films was the most fun he and Peter Sellers had making movies. So, after years of talking about it, they decided to make The Return of the Pink Panther in 1975. Though it was 12-years since the first Pink Panther film, Edwards knew his material ‘intimately’, especially the character of Inspector Clouseau, who was a little older but certainly no wiser. This on location report goes behind-the-scenes of The Return of the Pink Panther, and contains interviews Edwards, Sellers, Christopher Plummer, Catherine Schell, and David Lodge.
I was never much of a fan of Annie Hall. I couldn’t honestly believe anyone would want to spend time with someone who seemed to be so alienated from their own feelings. I sat in the cinema thinking “Get oan wi’ it. Dae something”. But all that happened was introspective discourse and humor as deflection. Sure it had funny moments, but it seemed a million miles away from my life and the lives of those around me. And it seemed indulgent.
Yet, Annie Hall marked the turning point when Allen’s unique brand of humor conquered the world, and changed film and TV comedy for the next 3 decades, right up to Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Allen was suddenly everywhere - from the covers of Newsweek and Time, to lengthy interviews on French TV and the South Bank Show. He was the pin-up of geeks and the bourgeoisie, and Annie Hall was a lifestyle choice.
Still, none of that takes away from the fact Woody Allen is a comic genius, and a brilliantly talented writer and director of films.
This fascinating documentary captures Allen not long after his Oscar success with Annie Hall and the release of his follow-up movie Interiors. Made for French TV in 1979 by Jacques Meny, and actress/journalist, France Roche, this documentary takes the neurotic King of Comedy through his childhood, early career, and success as writer filmmaker. Though the voice over is French, Allen’s interview is in English.
Here’s an interesting little curio for those who love British comedy - an interview with Eric Sykes on the set of of his little known feature film directing debut, You Better Go In Disguise in 1973. To the younger generation, Sykes may be best known for his performances in Harry Potter, The Others and even The Tele-Tubbies, but for those who grew-up in the seventies, he will always be remembered for his classic sit-com Sykes.
Long before Schwarzenegger and De Vito, Sykes and the wonderful Hattie Jacques were the original comedy twins. Over 9 series, Eric and Hat were essential Monday night viewing, and were the perfect neighbors, and the kind of relatives I always wishes I had.
Sykes was a comedy genius, who started his career writing brilliantly surreal monologues for Frankie Howerd, his first script was the tale of Frankie taking two elephants on a journey by train. Sykes then went onto write The Goons, when Spike Milligan was indisposed, and formed a legendary writing group with Milligan and Alan Galton and Ray Simpson (the talent behind Tony Hancock and creators of Steptoe and Son). Then in the 1950s, Sykes started a partnership with Hattie Jacques that would last until the beautiful Hat’s untimely death in 1980.
Hattie makes an appearance in this clip along with sixties TV ‘tec, Stratford Johns who looks like he’s being interviewed by a giant. Of course, Johns was best known for his role in Softly, Softly, Barlow and Watt and Brond. Sykes gives a purposely confusing description of You Better Go In Disguise, which bombed and was later remade in a slightly different version by Eric in 1981 as If You Go Down to the Woods Today.
The comedienne TIg Notaro is new to me, but she is a well-known figure on the American stand-up comedy circuit (and to viewers of The Sarah Silverman Program, where she played a cop SIlverman goes “les” for). While I may not live in the States, or even have a TV, I am very happy to have found this woman, ‘cos she’s hilarious.
I discovered the wonders of Tig while innocently browsing Zach Galifianakis interviews on the web. Anyone who has seen the excellent Between Two Ferns knows that an interview with Galifianakis can be a brutal, painfully funny ordeal. Well, Tig is one of the only people who can match Galifianakis’ surly, steely cynicism beat-for-beat, and in this clip for Bright Young Things she actually gets the better of him at his own awkward-interview game. That is no mean feat.
Once my interest had been pricked by this clip, I had to go and find out more about this woman, and thankfully her hilarious dalliance with Galifianakis was no mere fluke. Notaro pulls off that west coast, drawling, “Whaaa?”-style delivery perfectly. It’s one of my favorite types of American comedy, and a style that tends to be over-looked in favor of the polemicism of Bill Hicks and George Carlin (not that it’s a competition, you understand). Maybe it’s got to do with all the sweet weed growing over there, but it’s something I think you guys do better than almost anyone else, if I’m honest.
There are some excellent Tig performance clips floating around online (particularly sketches recorded at the Purple Onion) and last year Notaro released her first album of comedy material, Good One. Here’s one of the longer sketches from the album, called “Taylor Dayne”, which recounts Tig’s run-ins with the eponymous 80s songstrel/actress. The way this sketch keeps looping back to the same punchline reminds me of Stewart Lee in a way, but stripped of all that “comedy-about-comedy” pretence that can become tiresome:
Tig Notaro “Taylor Dayne”
You can buy Good Onehere, and find out more info on Tig at her website.
In the meantime, you can download the sketch “Can You Believe It” by putting your email address into this little widget, then clicking “Download” when it directs you to her site:
Sometimes you can judge a film by its poster, as can be seen by this fab poster by artist Paul Garner for an imaginary flick, Carry On Zombie. Indeed, I’m so taken with Mr Garner’s illustration, I’d pay good money to see Sid, Kenneth, Babs and co. as the living dead.
Based in Brighton, Garner has produced an incredible array of art work for magazines, papers, CDs and posters, all of which is available for view over at his site.
I do hope Mr Garner’s excellent poster will inspire someone to resurrect (ahem) the Carry On… franchise. Meantime, here’s a trailer for one they made earlier, Carry On Screaming.
Carry on Zombie poster copyrighted to Paul Garner.
If John Cleese hadn’t gone into Monty Python, then he would “have stuck to his original plan to graduate and become a chartered accountant, perhaps a barrister lawyer, and gotten a nice house in the suburbs, with a nice wife and kids, and gotten a country club membership, and then I would have killed myself.”
Ah well, the best laid plans of mice and men. Sensibly, Cleese opted for plan B, and all the success that entailed. It was therefore a surprise when Cleese quit Python in 1973, after its third TV series, and joined up as a supporting player to stand-up comic called Les Dawson, in his comedy sketch show, Sez Les.
Dawson and Cleese could not have been more dissimilar - Dawson short and plump, Cleese tall and skinny. Dawson was working class and self-educated, who had worked a long apprenticeship of stand-up in the working men’s clubs in the north of England, while maintaining his day-job as a Hoover salesman. Cleese was middle class, university educated and was upper-middle management, white collar material.
Dawson had originally wanted to be a writer, inspired by Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, he had hitched the highway to Paris, where he found work as a pianist in a brothel. Unable to find a publisher for his poetry, Dawson returned homewards, and inspired by his experiences as a pianist, tried his hand as a comic. Though he made his name with mother-in-law jokes, Dawson was a clever and verbally dextrous comedian, who dismantled jokes, only to recreate them in a funnier form. Cleese described Dawson as “An autodidact, a very smart guy who was fascinated by words.”
After a winning run on the talent show Opportunity Knocks, Dawson earned his first TV series, Sez Les (1969-1976), and fast became one of Britain’s best loved comics. In 1974, Cleese joined Dawson on the series, and the pairing (like a hybrid Peter Cook and Dudley Moore) proved highly successful. Both men had great respect for each other, and more importantly had a genuine affection which came over in their performances together.
Cleese eventually left to make Fawlty Towers, but for 2 series of Sez Les in 1974, Dawson and Cleese were top drawer comedy entertainment.
It’s Friday. Here’s Bill Hicks. Relentless. Recorded at the Just For Laughs Festival in 1992.
Sad to think Mr Hicks would have been only 50 this December. How things have changed since his death in 1994. A damned shame, as we could do with someone like him now.
For thirty-six years, Norma Farnes was Spike Milligan’s manager, agent and Mother Confessor. She was also his friend. Since Milligan’s death in 2002, Norma has shown a loyalty to their friendship, which our world of social networks, Friending, Following and +1ing may never replace. For Ms. Farnes has been collating and editing the millions of words written by the late, great comedy genius, into a series of books - Box 18: The Unpublished Spike Milligan, The Compulsive Spike Milligan, Memories of Milligan - and now, Milligan’s Meaning of Life, his “autobiography of sorts”.
Who else but Norma Farnes could have edited together this fabulous collection of loose threads, extracts, and letters, which make Milligan’s Meaning of Life, such a brilliant autobiography.
As Norma explains in her introduction:
‘A sort of autobiography’. Yes, Spike would have liked that. I can hear him saying, ‘Yes, well, I suppose I’ve had a sort of life.’
...His many followers will, no doubt, find gaps, but it wasn’t my intention to give a complete account - rather an impressionistic journey. I did my best, but as Spike used to say to me: ‘That’s what worries me.’
Farnes should have no fears, as she has compiled a marvelous book, cherry-picking from the best of Milligan’s various writings. Farnes has a terrific eye for the telling phrase and revealing sentence, which presents Milligan as a bruised, sensitive, mercurial, inspired and very funny man. A man who had long bouts of severe depression, suffered terrible nervous breakdowns, was riddled with shyness and insecurities, yet through it all produced some of the our best, funniest and most memorable comedy.
During his life, Milligan produced over eighty books, ranging from poetry (Silly Verse for Kids to Small Dreams of a Scorpion), prose (most notably Puckoon, one of the best comic novels written), and his 7 volumes of War memoirs, starting with the hilarious Adolf Hitler - My Part in His Downfall, plays (The Bed-Sitting Room and countless radio scripts form The Goons and his own classic comedy series Q. In very real terms, Milligan produced more work, and of a higher quality, than most novelists or writers ever achieve in a lifetime.
