Latest Rabbit Hole.
Last night, I saw something about Steve Martin's stand-up from back in the day. I began wondering if he was so calculated in his career that he figured the late 70’s (post-Nixon, post-Vietnam) was the right time for an American comedian who was silly and spouted inspired nonsense, like Monty Python was doing.
I've read his biography but didn't recall him addressing this idea, but maybe he hoped that once he hit it big, he could then transition to the smarter stuff, like what he’d been writing for the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (and winning Emmys for).
That reminded me that after his smash debut in The Jerk, his very next film was Pennies from Heaven, which I haven't seen in its entirety since it played originally on HBO in '82. Could it be as grim as I recall? Of course there's the ending...
but in particular I think of the song-and-dance hobo who so movingly sings the title song...
but then goes on to rape and murder a blind girl.
A late-eighties biography of Fred Astaire quoted him as saying of the film, "I have never spent two more miserable hours in my life. Every scene was
cheap and vulgar. They don't realize that the '30s were a very innocent
age... it makes you cry it's so distasteful."
Okay, Greatest Generation. Anyway, that hobo was played by Vernel Bagneris, who wrote the musical One Mo’ Time...
and whose mentor was Pepsi Bethel, who made black indie dance movies in the 30’s.
Now, this is where the rabbit hole has been leading! Check out this YouTube video: I watch these grainy films shot on sparse sets and I swear I feel like I’m there. Don’t expect perfection. I promise you’ll be entertained.
And if you weren't entertained: Well, exCUUU-uuu-USE MEEE!!!
See what I did there? Brought it back to the rabbit’s hole! Or, like, the opening of the rabbit’s hole. You know what I mean.
posted by psaur at 12:34 PM
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