Steve Martin – The Wild and Crazy Comedy Collection
Studio: Universal Studios
Rated: R
Release Date: 2007-02-13
WorkNameSort: Steve Martin – The Wild and Crazy Comedy Collection
These days, we don’t think of Steve Martin as an innovator. Not when he’s starring in standard family fare like the Cheaper by the Dozen and Pink Panther remakes. But when Martin was first getting into movies, he was a wilder and crazier guy. For starters, there’s The Jerk (1979), which features his debut in a starring role. At the time, Martin was known for his phenomenally successful standup act, in which he appeared to be an arrogant, self-centered asshole. Most comedians would have capitalized on the marketable image, but Martin rolled the dice by playing a different sort of jerk in that film ‘ a gullible fool.
The gamble paid off; The Jerk was hilarious and a smash, and Martin kept taking risks. His next film, a shockingly unconventional musical called Pennies From Heaven (1981), flopped badly, although it’s now considered a classic. Then came Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982), another experiment. The black-and-white film-noir spoof uses editing tricks to put Martin in scenes with Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and other stars of an earlier age. Back then, it played like an overextended comedy sketch, and it plays even worse now that technology has far surpassed its antique gimmickry.
Still, Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, like The Jerk and Pennies From Heaven, showed that Martin was a film artist who loved to try new things. To cinephiles of the early 1980s, the thought of him in something like Cheaper by the Dozen, let alone Cheaper by the Dozen 2, would have been preposterous.
In 1984 came The Lonely Guy, based on the book by humorist Bruce Jay Friedman. This film has a plot of sorts, but Martin is basically playing a concept: an unhappily single male urbanite. This film, too, is an experiment, but not a funny one (although Charles Grodin does manage an oddly amusing turn as an experienced lonely guy).
All these early Steve Martin films ‘ except Pennies From Heaven ‘ are available in Steve Martin: The Wild and Crazy Comedy Collection, a bare-bones, two-disc set. Martin would go on to make better movies, including Roxanne, All of Me, L.A. Story and Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Of course, he would also make many worse ones. But this collection shows that from the outset, he was headed in an intriguing direction. Until recently, that is.
This article appears in Feb 21-27, 2007.