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- Movie Night at the Playboy Mansion - The Jerk
Movie Night at the Playboy Mansion - The Jerk
| November 6, 2009 Tomorrow night: Steve Martin and Kathleen Turner in Carl Reiner’s hilarious “THE MAN WITH 2 BRAINS.” On Sunday: Michael Jackson in “THIS IS IT.” And a new episode of GND. Next Friday: Michael Douglas and Sharon Stone in “BASIC INSTINCT.” On Saturday—a week from tomorrow: Michael Douglas and Glenn Close in “FATAL ATTRACTION.” Tonight: Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters in “THE JERK.” Steve Martin was born in Waco, Texas in 1945, but grew up in Southern California. In his mid-teens, he sold guide books and performed magic tricks at Disneyland. And at 18, added banjo and comedy routines to his repertoire. He majored in philosophy at California State in Long Beach, intending to teach, but after a year, he switched to UCLA, graduating with a degree in theater arts. He landed his first big-time job as a comedy writer for TV’s “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour,” for which he earned an Emmy in 1969. He went on to perform similar services for Sonny and Cher, and other entertainers, and at the same time began appearing with increasing regularity on TV comedy-variety shows. He then took to the road as a stand-up comic, appearing on the Playboy Club circuit, eventually scoring great success as a club performer. His popularity soared with frequent appearances on “THE TONIGHT SHOW,” and especially on “SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE,” where he perfected his “Wild and Crazy Guy” Routine. The prematurely gray Martin made his film debut in 1977 in “THE ABSENT-MINDED WAITER,” and scored his first big hit two years later in “THE JERK.” The film was co-authored by Martin and directed by Carl Reiner, who created the Emmy Award winning “DICK VAN DYKE SHOW,” the legendary “2000-year-old-man” routine with Mel Brooks and directed “WHERE’S POPPA?” (1970). “THE JERK” was Martin’s first of several collaborations with Reiner. Martin’s co-star, Bernadette Peters, made her first legitimate stage appearance in a New York revival of “THE MOST HAPPY FELLA” in 1955 and later toured with the road company of “GYPSY.” By the late ‘60s, she was starring in Broadway musicals, scoring a personal triumph in off-Broadway’s “DAMES AT SEA” (1968). She appeared in Mel Brooks’ “SILENT MOVIE” (1976). She and Steve Martin were dating at the time they made “THE JERK.” They appeared together again in the film version of Dennis Potter’s British TV classic “PENNIES FROM HEAVEN” (1981). Bill Murray had a cameo in the picture that was deleted. Mike Nichols was originally scheduled to direct the picture but changed his mind at the last minute. The film was shot from February 15 through May 16, 1979. Finished three weeks early, $500,000 under budget. Working titles included “EASY MONEY” and “MONEY TO BURN.” The mansion shown in the film is the infamous Sheik Al-Fassi mansion on Sunset Boulevard that was torched by an arsonist in 1980. The tacky rooms, including the basement disco, were actually shot there. Martin’s favorite scene in the film involves M. Emmett Walsh shooting at cans at a gas station. His favorite moment: The song “YOU BELONG TO ME,” a hit in the 1920’s and again in the 1950’s by Patience and Prudence. “THE JERK” was released to theaters on December 16, 1979 with an “R” rating. An ad-line read: “A rags to riches to rags story—he was a poor black sharecropper’s son who never dreamed he was adopted.” Variety’s review announced: “Goofy, dumb, innocent, loud, uncoordinated, bashful and quite dirty. Pic is an artless, non-stop barrage of off-the-wall situations, funny and unfunny jokes, generally effective and sometimes hilarious sight gags and bawdy non-sequiturs. In his autobiography, Steve Martin states: “After receiving one lone good review from a small paper in Florida and getting dismissive and sadistic reviews from the rest of the country, “THE JERK” made $180 million in old money. It was recently voted among AFI’s top 50 comedies of all time, he said smugly.” This is one of Stanley Kubrick’s favorite films, regaling cast and crew on his own pictures with line after line from “THE JERK.” Martin’s own father was unimpressed by his son’s success. When asked about his son’s performance in the film, he declared, “Well, he’s no Chaplin.” So now—from 1979—the Steve Martin classic: “THE JERK.” |
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Mar 20, 2010
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