Word: leno
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...anymore. Letterman's show has dropped to third place in the ratings, behind both Tonight and ABC's Nightline, and his surly, subversive comedy has gone back to being a minority taste. Leno, after a rocky start, has the hot hand, with newsmaking guests (Hugh Grant, Magic Johnson), big-event ambiance (traveling to the Super Bowl) and the most relentlessly flogged O.J. bits on TV. Now Jay is the one getting the nightly ovations...
...Late Shift, a new HBO movie about the network battle over Leno and Letterman, arrives looking like something of a period piece. It is based on Bill Carter's 1994 book, which was essentially the story of Letterman's victory: how he outsmarted the network suits and became the most sought-after personality in television. The movie, even more than the book, pokes fun at the ineptitude of the NBC executives who let Letterman get away and ends with CBS's triumphal press conference welcoming Dave to the network. There's a postscript acknowledging that the ratings have since turned...
...enough, but to re-create this TV-industry story for a mass audience seems the height of self-absorption. John Michael Higgins does a good job mimicking Letterman's cigar-chomping crankiness, but he's too energetic. Daniel Roebuck has the chin (with the help of prosthetics), but turns Leno into a simpering moron. Yet these characters, at least, will be recognizable to viewers. The rest of The Late Shift is a parade of TV executives known to few in the audience, but all scrupulously identified onscreen as if this were a documentary on the Vietnam peace talks. (Look...
...shenanigans have been deftly digested (by Carter, who co-wrote the screenplay, and director Betty Thomas), and the movie gives a good picture, in broad strokes, of how the TV business runs: badly, most of the time. NBC's executives, surprised by Carson's retirement and egged on by Leno's aggressive manager, Helen Kushnick (Kathy Bates), promised the job to Jay without comprehending how it would upset Dave. Letterman, who felt he was entitled to the Tonight post but was unwilling to fight for it, hired a new agent, Michael Ovitz (Treat Williams), who orchestrated the bidding war that...
...client; once, furious that NBC let its coverage of the Republican National Convention run long, delaying the start of the Tonight Show, she sent the studio audience home and forced the network to air a rerun. But the movie's portrayal of her power-mad bitchiness, even to Leno ("Stand up straight, for chrisakes; you're the host of the Tonight Show!"), leaves the viewer wondering why Leno was loyal to her for so long. Similarly, the NBC executives are too wimpy and stupid to be believed. In one scene, Leno eavesdrops on a speakerphone conversation between network executives discussing...