Game Knows Game

Lenny (1974) – Lenny Bruce took stand-up comedy in a new direction with a style that was blunt and truth-filled. It was also loud and often obscene, which resulted in repeated arrests for the iconic comic.

Directed by Bob Fosse

Starring – Dustin Hoffman, Valerie Perrine, Jan Miner

Why I Liked It – A searing performance by Hoffman in a different role than we are accustomed to seeing him in these days.

I saw this movie in the theater as a second run in the summer before I went to college. If memory serves, it was the summer of 1976, and I was studying at the Chautauqua Theater School. Here was one of the rising stars of the movies, in a movie about a pivotal and still controversial comedian. It was “must see” for me.

And it blew me away. I was only beginning to emerge from the protective suburban cocoon of my formative years. Bruce’s name was vaguely familiar, mostly in connection with negative stories about him. Meanwhile, Hoffman was riding a string of critical and box offices successes. He’d already scored with “The Graduate”, “Midnight Cowboy”, “Little Big Man”, “Straw Dogs”, and “Papillon”. He gives a stunning performance here. The combination of character and actor comes screaming off the screen.

Hoffman isn’t alone in searing performances. Valerie Perrine plays Lenny’s wife/muse, Honey Harlow. There’s a wonderful balance to the character’s naivete and her gritty professional life as a showgirl/stripper. Jan Miner is Bruce’s mother, Sally Marr, a stand-up comedian herself, who raised Lenny as a single mom in showbiz. I have to give a nod to Gary Morton as Sherman Hart. Hart is clearly Milton Berle, one of the biggest stars in comedy in the 1950s. The producers were concerned that Berle would take offense at this look at him and sue.

The movie also benefits from the directorial style of Bob Fosse. Fosse was coming off the massive success of “Cabaret” two years before. In 1979, he directed “All That Jazz”. His career as a movie director was short, but genius was evident everywhere. He changed choreography, blazed a bright path and died at age 60. It’s the feel for the theatricality of a stand-up comedians life that Fosse brings into pinpoint focus here. I have to believe that Fosse felt some connection with Bruce’s story. Their lives share many common notes, including drugs, infidelity, early death, and, as mentioned before, genius.

This movie stunned me as a young man, and was just as compelling the second time around. Watch it because it’s a beautiful movie, watch it to see one of the greatest actors of his generation in all his glory, watch it because you love stand-up and you need to pay homage to Lenny Bruce.

Rating – ***** Highest Recommendation