The Comic
Encyclopedia
The Comic is a 1969 drama
/black comedy film co-written, co-produced and directed by Carl Reiner
. It stars former Disney
regulars Dick Van Dyke
as Billy Bright (the original title) and Michele Lee
as Bright's love interest. Reiner himself and Mickey Rooney
(who would later reunite with Van Dyke for the second time thirty seven years later in Night at the Museum
) co-stars as Bright's friends and work colleagues. Reiner wrote the screenplay with Aaron Ruben
, which was inspired by the end of silent film
era, and in part, by the life of silent film superstar Buster Keaton
.
), a silent-era film comedian, narrates this film which begins at his character's funeral
in 1969 and tells his life story in flashback
s, unable to see his own faults and morosely (and incorrectly) blaming others for the turns of the events in his life.
Headstrong and talented, vaudeville
clown Bright arrives on his first California film location insisting that he will perform his bit role only if he can wear the outrageous costume and makeup of the character he has been known for on the stage. The director refuses and Bright begins to storm off, but when his car rolls off a cliff he is forced to accept the terms. As soon as the cameras are rolling, however, he improvises (and sabotages) his way to becoming the hero of the scenario. His combination of acquiescence and audacity pays off, and before long he has become a major film comedy star in the 1910s and '20s, the silent picture era of Buster Keaton
, Charlie Chaplin
and Stan Laurel
. He steals his leading lady, Mary (Michele Lee
), from the film bigwig she's been dating and the two increasingly popular performers marry, starting their own production company together. As early as her pregnancy, however, she begins to suspect his adultery
; when she confronts him he tries to turn the tables and shame her into apologizing for the accusation. When, at the height of their fame and fortune, he is served with papers naming him in a Hollywood power couple's divorce filing, she leaves him, taking their young son — and the couple's palatial estate.
Bright sinks into despair and alcoholism
, and leaves the country to film in Europe for four years. He sobers up and attempts a comeback in Hollywood, but — ever living in the past — will accept it on no other terms than those he had been accustomed to, adamantly refusing the studio's offer to star him in a talkie, and storming out on his agent (Carl Reiner
). Like the film industry, his wife has moved on, and rebuffs his attempt to win her back by reminding her of what once was. The one constant in his life, other than his decreasingly appealing sense of identity, is his old screen sidekick
and only friend, Cockeye (Mickey Rooney
).
Steve Allen
appears as himself, a late-1960s talk show
host who has the faded star on in an effort to revive his career, and the elderly Bright proves capable of — if somewhat pathetic to the groovy
stars of the day on the couch alongside him for — recreating his old pratfall schtick. The pitch works, but this time the only vehicle that will allow him to run through his preferred brand of slapstick
is a detergent
commercial. The denouement of Bright's life, and the film, finds him in and out of the hospital, just had been visited by his now-grown son Billy Jr. (also played by Van Dyke in a dual role), reduced to setting the alarm in his dingy two-room apartment, and catching airings of he and his former wife's old comedies at odd hours on TV — which he watches without a hint of a smile.
said he had written the film as a vehicle for Van Dyke who had, on the set of their TV show, The Dick Van Dyke Show
, often expressed the wish that he had been working at the same time as comedy legends such as his hero Stan Laurel
.
Reiner loosely patterned the story of Bright's career downfall on the real-life travails of a number of early film actors, primarily Buster Keaton
(although some details parallel the experience of the film's co-star Rooney), who likewise saw his Hollywood success falter as filmgoers' tastes changed and he fell into alcoholism. Ironically, after Van Dyke's critically acclaimed performance as a desperately struggling alcoholic in the 1974 TV film The Morning After, Van Dyke disclosed that he had only recently overcome a serious drinking problem in his own life.
, whom Dick Van Dyke loved. He would later learn that since the end of Laurel's time with Oliver Hardy
, many imitators came and went and no attempt was made to legally stop them from imitating Laurel, his friend Hardy or even copying his face, which in part inspired this film. Van Dyke said of The Comic: "very few people saw that movie, but we were proud of it."
tape published by RCA
/Columbia Pictures
Home Video (Burbank, CA) in 1986 . Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment also released a VHS edition the same year (ISBN 0800132823).
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...
/black comedy film co-written, co-produced and directed by Carl Reiner
Carl Reiner
Carl Reiner is an American actor, film director, producer, writer and comedian. He has won nine Emmy Awards and one Grammy Award during this career...
. It stars former Disney
Walt Disney Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures is an American film studio owned by The Walt Disney Company. Walt Disney Pictures and Television, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Studios and the main production company for live-action feature films within the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, based at the Walt Disney...
regulars Dick Van Dyke
Dick Van Dyke
Richard Wayne "Dick" Van Dyke is an American actor, comedian, writer, and producer with a career spanning six decades. He is the older brother of Jerry Van Dyke, and father of Barry Van Dyke...
as Billy Bright (the original title) and Michele Lee
Michele Lee
Michele Lee is an American singer, dancer, actress, producer, director and frequent game show panelist of the 1970s. She is best-known for her role as Karen Cooper Fairgate MacKenzie on the 1980s prime-time soap opera, Knots Landing...
as Bright's love interest. Reiner himself and Mickey Rooney
Mickey Rooney
Mickey Rooney is an American film actor and entertainer whose film, television, and stage appearances span nearly his entire lifetime. He has won multiple awards, including an Honorary Academy Award, a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award...
(who would later reunite with Van Dyke for the second time thirty seven years later in Night at the Museum
Night at the Museum
Night at the Museum is a 2006 fantasy adventure-comedy film based on the 1993 children's book The Night at the Museum by Milan Trenc. It follows a divorced father trying to settle down, impress his son, and find his destiny...
) co-stars as Bright's friends and work colleagues. Reiner wrote the screenplay with Aaron Ruben
Aaron Ruben
Aaron Ruben, was an American television director known for The Andy Griffith Show Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. and Sanford and Son .-Early life:...
, which was inspired by the end of silent film
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
era, and in part, by the life of silent film superstar Buster Keaton
Buster Keaton
Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".Keaton was recognized as the...
.
Plot
Billy Bright (Dick Van DykeDick Van Dyke
Richard Wayne "Dick" Van Dyke is an American actor, comedian, writer, and producer with a career spanning six decades. He is the older brother of Jerry Van Dyke, and father of Barry Van Dyke...
), a silent-era film comedian, narrates this film which begins at his character's funeral
Funeral
A funeral is a ceremony for celebrating, sanctifying, or remembering the life of a person who has died. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember the dead, from interment itself, to various monuments, prayers, and rituals undertaken in their honor...
in 1969 and tells his life story in flashback
Flashback (narrative)
Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
s, unable to see his own faults and morosely (and incorrectly) blaming others for the turns of the events in his life.
Headstrong and talented, vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
clown Bright arrives on his first California film location insisting that he will perform his bit role only if he can wear the outrageous costume and makeup of the character he has been known for on the stage. The director refuses and Bright begins to storm off, but when his car rolls off a cliff he is forced to accept the terms. As soon as the cameras are rolling, however, he improvises (and sabotages) his way to becoming the hero of the scenario. His combination of acquiescence and audacity pays off, and before long he has become a major film comedy star in the 1910s and '20s, the silent picture era of Buster Keaton
Buster Keaton
Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".Keaton was recognized as the...
, Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
and Stan Laurel
Stan Laurel
Arthur Stanley "Stan" Jefferson , better known as Stan Laurel, was an English comic actor, writer and film director, famous as the first half of the comedy team Laurel and Hardy. His film acting career stretched between 1917 and 1951 and included a starring role in the Academy Award winning film...
. He steals his leading lady, Mary (Michele Lee
Michele Lee
Michele Lee is an American singer, dancer, actress, producer, director and frequent game show panelist of the 1970s. She is best-known for her role as Karen Cooper Fairgate MacKenzie on the 1980s prime-time soap opera, Knots Landing...
), from the film bigwig she's been dating and the two increasingly popular performers marry, starting their own production company together. As early as her pregnancy, however, she begins to suspect his adultery
Adultery
Adultery is sexual infidelity to one's spouse, and is a form of extramarital sex. It originally referred only to sex between a woman who was married and a person other than her spouse. Even in cases of separation from one's spouse, an extramarital affair is still considered adultery.Adultery is...
; when she confronts him he tries to turn the tables and shame her into apologizing for the accusation. When, at the height of their fame and fortune, he is served with papers naming him in a Hollywood power couple's divorce filing, she leaves him, taking their young son — and the couple's palatial estate.
Bright sinks into despair and alcoholism
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
, and leaves the country to film in Europe for four years. He sobers up and attempts a comeback in Hollywood, but — ever living in the past — will accept it on no other terms than those he had been accustomed to, adamantly refusing the studio's offer to star him in a talkie, and storming out on his agent (Carl Reiner
Carl Reiner
Carl Reiner is an American actor, film director, producer, writer and comedian. He has won nine Emmy Awards and one Grammy Award during this career...
). Like the film industry, his wife has moved on, and rebuffs his attempt to win her back by reminding her of what once was. The one constant in his life, other than his decreasingly appealing sense of identity, is his old screen sidekick
Sidekick
A sidekick is a close companion who is generally regarded as subordinate to the one he accompanies. Some well-known fictional sidekicks are Don Quixote's Sancho Panza, Sherlock Holmes' Doctor Watson, The Lone Ranger's Tonto, The Green Hornet's Kato and Batman's Robin.-Origins:The origin of the...
and only friend, Cockeye (Mickey Rooney
Mickey Rooney
Mickey Rooney is an American film actor and entertainer whose film, television, and stage appearances span nearly his entire lifetime. He has won multiple awards, including an Honorary Academy Award, a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award...
).
Steve Allen
Steve Allen
Steve Allen may refer to:*Steve Allen , American musician, comedian, and writer*Steve Allen , presenter on the London-based talk radio station LBC 97.3...
appears as himself, a late-1960s talk show
Talk show
A talk show or chat show is a television program or radio program where one person discuss various topics put forth by a talk show host....
host who has the faded star on in an effort to revive his career, and the elderly Bright proves capable of — if somewhat pathetic to the groovy
Groovy
Groovy is a slang colloquialism popular during the 1960s and 1970s, springing out of African American culture. It is roughly synonymous with words such as "cool", "excellent", "fashionable", or "amazing", depending on context....
stars of the day on the couch alongside him for — recreating his old pratfall schtick. The pitch works, but this time the only vehicle that will allow him to run through his preferred brand of slapstick
Slapstick
Slapstick is a type of comedy involving exaggerated violence and activities which may exceed the boundaries of common sense.- Origins :The phrase comes from the batacchio or bataccio — called the 'slap stick' in English — a club-like object composed of two wooden slats used in Commedia dell'arte...
is a detergent
Detergent
A detergent is a surfactant or a mixture of surfactants with "cleaning properties in dilute solutions." In common usage, "detergent" refers to alkylbenzenesulfonates, a family of compounds that are similar to soap but are less affected by hard water...
commercial. The denouement of Bright's life, and the film, finds him in and out of the hospital, just had been visited by his now-grown son Billy Jr. (also played by Van Dyke in a dual role), reduced to setting the alarm in his dingy two-room apartment, and catching airings of he and his former wife's old comedies at odd hours on TV — which he watches without a hint of a smile.
Cast
- Dick Van DykeDick Van DykeRichard Wayne "Dick" Van Dyke is an American actor, comedian, writer, and producer with a career spanning six decades. He is the older brother of Jerry Van Dyke, and father of Barry Van Dyke...
as Billy Bright / Billy Bright, Jr. (adult) - Michele LeeMichele LeeMichele Lee is an American singer, dancer, actress, producer, director and frequent game show panelist of the 1970s. She is best-known for her role as Karen Cooper Fairgate MacKenzie on the 1980s prime-time soap opera, Knots Landing...
as Mary Gibson - Mickey RooneyMickey RooneyMickey Rooney is an American film actor and entertainer whose film, television, and stage appearances span nearly his entire lifetime. He has won multiple awards, including an Honorary Academy Award, a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award...
as Cockeye - Cornel WildeCornel WildeCornel Wilde was an American actor and film director.-Early life:Kornél Lajos Weisz was born in 1912 in Prievidza, Hungary , although his year and place of birth are usually and inaccurately given as 1915 in New York City...
as Frank Powers - Nina WayneNina WayneNina Rae Wayne is an American actress.She married John Drew Barrymore in 1985; they have a daughter.-Career:Wayne, the younger sister of fellow actress Carol Wayne, started working in television in 1965, first appearing in 12 episodes of the series Camp Runamuck and in an episode of Bewitched.The...
as Sybil - Pert KeltonPert KeltonPert Kelton was an American vaudeville, movie, radio and television actress. She was the first actress who played Alice Kramden in The Honeymooners with Jackie Gleason and was a prominent comedic supporting film actress in the 1930s...
as Mama - Steve AllenSteve AllenSteve Allen may refer to:*Steve Allen , American musician, comedian, and writer*Steve Allen , presenter on the London-based talk radio station LBC 97.3...
as Himself - Barbara HellerBarbara HellerBarbara Heller is a German composer and pianist. She lives in Darmstadt, in the Odenwald and at times on the Canary Island of La Gomera.-Biography:...
as Ginger - Ed PeckEd PeckEd Peck was an American actor.Peck was born in New York, United States, and was active in television and in films from 1951 to 1983....
as Edwin G. Englehardt - Jeannine RileyJeannine RileyJeannine Riley is an American actress.She played in numerous television series and a few feature films such as The Big Mouth...
as Lorraine - Gavin MacLeodGavin MacLeodGavin MacLeod is an American actor most notable for playing Happy Haines on McHale's Navy, Murray Slaughter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Captain Merrill Stubing on The Love Boat...
as 1st Director - Jay NovelloJay NovelloJay Novello was an American radio, film, and television character actor.Born in Chicago as Michael Romano, of Italian descent, Novello began his career as a radio actor, playing Jack Packard on the Hollywood version of I Love a Mystery for a brief period, circa 1944...
as Miguel - Craig Huebing as Doctor
- Paulene Myers as Phoebe
- Fritz FeldFritz FeldFritz Feld was a film character actor actor who appeared in over 140 films, both silent and sound. His trademark was to slap his mouth with the palm of his hand to create a pop sound.-Biography:...
as Armand
Production
In his autobiography, Carl ReinerCarl Reiner
Carl Reiner is an American actor, film director, producer, writer and comedian. He has won nine Emmy Awards and one Grammy Award during this career...
said he had written the film as a vehicle for Van Dyke who had, on the set of their TV show, The Dick Van Dyke Show
The Dick Van Dyke Show
The Dick Van Dyke Show is an American television sitcom that initially aired on the Columbia Broadcasting System from October 3, 1961, until June 1, 1966. The show was created by Carl Reiner and starred Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore. It was produced by Reiner with Bill Persky and Sam Denoff....
, often expressed the wish that he had been working at the same time as comedy legends such as his hero Stan Laurel
Stan Laurel
Arthur Stanley "Stan" Jefferson , better known as Stan Laurel, was an English comic actor, writer and film director, famous as the first half of the comedy team Laurel and Hardy. His film acting career stretched between 1917 and 1951 and included a starring role in the Academy Award winning film...
.
Reiner loosely patterned the story of Bright's career downfall on the real-life travails of a number of early film actors, primarily Buster Keaton
Buster Keaton
Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".Keaton was recognized as the...
(although some details parallel the experience of the film's co-star Rooney), who likewise saw his Hollywood success falter as filmgoers' tastes changed and he fell into alcoholism. Ironically, after Van Dyke's critically acclaimed performance as a desperately struggling alcoholic in the 1974 TV film The Morning After, Van Dyke disclosed that he had only recently overcome a serious drinking problem in his own life.
Response
Very few people saw the film upon its release, but in later years, it would be liked as a movie about one silent star's rise and fall, patterned after the many silent stars that tried to make it in later years and failed: among the exceptions would be silent and sound film star Stan LaurelStan Laurel
Arthur Stanley "Stan" Jefferson , better known as Stan Laurel, was an English comic actor, writer and film director, famous as the first half of the comedy team Laurel and Hardy. His film acting career stretched between 1917 and 1951 and included a starring role in the Academy Award winning film...
, whom Dick Van Dyke loved. He would later learn that since the end of Laurel's time with Oliver Hardy
Oliver Hardy
Oliver Hardy was an American comic actor famous as one half of Laurel and Hardy, the classic double act that began in the era of silent films and lasted nearly 30 years, from 1927 to 1955.-Early life:...
, many imitators came and went and no attempt was made to legally stop them from imitating Laurel, his friend Hardy or even copying his face, which in part inspired this film. Van Dyke said of The Comic: "very few people saw that movie, but we were proud of it."
Availability
The Comic was produced on a VHSVHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
tape published by RCA
RCA
RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...
/Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
Home Video (Burbank, CA) in 1986 . Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment also released a VHS edition the same year (ISBN 0800132823).