Word: comic
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...production is not too innocent to offend anyone. Most of the actors look too frightened or unsure, and although there is a director, you'd never know it from the blocking or pace of the show. As in most junior high productions, whenever someone chances to display a little comic flair or intelligence--even unrefined--the effect is so exhilarating that it goes beyond moments of style in slick, even productions, and you might think that the person in question will do good things someday--in a college production, perhaps...
THIRTY SUMMERS AGO, the owner of a Jewish resort in the Catskills hired a skinny, crazy kid named Mel to amuse the middle-aged couples lounging around the swimming pool. That proprietor could hardly have known it, but in hiring that kid he unleashed a comic force of staggering proportions upon the Borscht Belt and eventually, the rest of the world. Mel Brooks was plainly crazy. He would do anything to get a laugh, and while his written gags frequently bore the stamp of genius, he often resorted to simply slapstick or "dirty" words. Either way, audiences loved...
...splenetic little whip of a man who bullies like a demented overseer, seldom speaks below a shriek and worships at the church of ostentation. Would you like to live next door to The Jeffersons? Or consider the character J.J. on TV's Good Times: a bug-eyed young comic of the ghetto with spasms of supercool blowing through his nervous system, a kind of ElectraGlide strut. "Dy-no-mite!" goes J.J., to convulse the audience in the way that something like "Feets, do your stuff!" got to them three decades ago. Then there is the character Ray Ellis...
...good, but is truly at her best here, switching costumes, rescuing her brother, dancing Charlestons and tangos, and looking rattled throughout. If, as her brother says, her mind is in her dancing shoes, then she clearly has lots of brains. George Melrod, as the lawyer, gets to display his comic talents to advantage in this act, and George W. Hunt, as Susie's hobo, makes the switch easily into hotel magnate, maintaining a boyish charm despite his three-piece suit, and eliciting as many chuckles as anyone in the cast...
...when the CB appropriates a docile mask, bright sunshine dominates the cinematographer's vision. The soundtrack, too, depicts both sides of the community. Basically low-keyed, the music alternates between clean but mournful acoustic guitar melodies and upbeat truck-driving ditties, echoing Demme's preoccupation with CB's comic and tragic elements...