by Julian Spivey
Steve Martin was the biggest stand-up comedian
of the late 1970s.
Martin was selling out arenas that previously
only major rock ‘n’ roll artists could sell out. It’s not much of a secret that Martin changed stand-up
comedy forever.
It’s been so long now that many people either
forget or do not realize that Martin indeed came to fame as a stand-up comedian. For the last 30 years Martin has been a successful
and highly bankable film star, despite being often critically panned. His film career began in 1979 with a breakout role in
Carl Reiner’s “The Jerk.” Thirty years later the film stands the test of time as one of the greatest comedies
of all time.
“The Jerk” was co-written by Martin,
Carl Gottlieb and Michael Elias. Martin stars as Navin R. Johnson, a man who was “born a poor black child” and
becomes a millionaire selling a wacky eyeglasses product that includes a handle, thus making it easier to take off and put
back on.
“The Jerk” is a 94 minute wild and
wacky film. Portions of the film are downright stupid, but it’s honestly hard to find a comedy that doesn’t include
dumb and dull moments. Even classics like “National Lampoon’s Animal House,” “Airplane!” and
“Blazing Saddles” have these types of moments.
The best parts of “The Jerk” are without
a doubt the scenes that involve the great film character actor M. Emmet Walsh. Walsh plays a gun wielding psycho who after
flipping through a phone book lands on Johnson’s name and determines that he will be his next victim. While Johnson
is working as a gas station attendant the man begins to shoot at him. The shooter misses and hits a bunch of oil cans beside
Johnson, which leads to one of the film’s greatest lines: “There’s something wrong with these cans. He HATES
these cans!”
Walsh is such a good character actor that he has
been immortalized in great film critic Roger Ebert’s “Stanton-Walsh” rule, which states that any film featuring
character actors Harry Dean Stanton and Walsh can be altogether bad. So, even if the only thing “The Jerk” had
going for it was simply an appearance by Walsh it would be worth the watch.
Comedies are always hard films to review. What
is funny for one person, might be agonizingly unfunny to somebody else. This is why comedic films are generally few and far
between when it comes to greatest films lists and classic films lists. “The Jerk” is considered to be a classic
of the comedy genre and even it has received numerous bad reviews from film critics.
“The Jerk” was named the 89th
funniest film of all time by the American Film Institute. The Bravo television network gave it a more favorable position on
their “100 Funniest Movies” list, at number 20.
“The Jerk” is without a doubt one
of the funniest films in the comedy genre and is a watershed moment in the genre’s history as it showed film audiences
for the first time what Martin was capable of doing on film.
