THE COMIC

US, 1968, 90 minutes, Colour.
Dick Van Dyke, Michelle Lee, Cornel Wilde, Mickey Rooney.
Directed by Carl Reiner.

The Comic received very good reviews when released but was not popular with cinema audiences. Perhaps they guessed that the title was ironic and that the film would not be as funny as they hoped. Perhaps audiences would not accept Dick Van Dyke in such a role. (Although, with his later revealing that he was an alcoholic, audiences gave great support to his television movie. The Morning After, in which he played an alcoholic.)

However, The Comic is a film well worth seeing. It is one of those films which takes us behind the scenes of show business, which criticises the old Hollywood world and its sense of unreality. It deals with people with problems and probe these very effectively. But it also pays tribute to the enjoyment for world audiences which Hollywood gave. It has a sequence of imitations of silent comedies (starring the Van Dyke character which makes convincing the character as a great screen comic) which are very funny indeed.

But the main impression is the pathos of the situations and the characters. Billy Bright, the comic, is not really an attractive character and yet he should have been. His wife is attractive and is made to suffer. A fellow comic, play very well by Mickey Rooney, highlights the problems of ageing and losing popularity.

The film was directed by comedian Carl Reiner, who also directed the black comedy Where's Poppa? The Comic can be highly recommended for discussion on life and growing old, careers, reputation.

1. How much irony was there in the title? Was this effective irony? How did the title give the tone to the film?

2. Was the film effective in its use of varying styles - of silent comedy, of modern comedy, of modern drama? Was it Successful in its structure ~ in it flashbacks, in its use of the words of Billy Bright, in the continual reference to his funeral?

3. What was the effect of having so many of Billy Bright's silent films? How genuinely funny were these? What kind of comic character was Billy Bright front these films? Mere they authentic enough to give value to the rest of the film and Billy Bright's career?

4. What kind of person was Billy Bright? In himself, as a man? As a movie star of the silent days? What kind of a career did he have? How self-mads was he? How selfish and self-centred was he? Consider his comments on what was happening and the reality in the film before our eyes? How realistic s outlook on others did he have? How pathetic a person was he? His relationship to Mary, to Cockeye, to Frank Powers? His eye for women? The shallow ness of his affections? His decline into old age - was he sympathetic in t old age? His selfishness with Cockeye? His going on the T.V. programmes? His commercials? Was his death a sad thing?

5. How interesting was the picture of Hollywood in its silent days and the type of films that it made? How did. people's private lives contrast with the comic stories on the screen? Is there some significance in this?

6. What kind of person was Mary Gibson - was she a genuine kind of person? Genuinely in love with Billy? A good mother? The impact of the wedding sequence and his filming at their honeymoon? Her trying to communicate with Billy on his return front Mexico and her failure? Her disappointment in the adultery case? Was she right to divorce him? To marry Frank Powers? How much grief was there at his funeral?

7. What kind of person was Frank Powers - as a man, as a director? Was he the right person for Mary to marry?

8. The importance of Cockeye in the film? How good a comic was he in the films? How sincere a friend to Billy? Why was he just as much a has-been artist as Billy? Was he sympathetic in his old age? In his friendship with Billy in old age?

9. How did the film show life in Hollywood in the twenties and the styles of life, fast and flashy?

10. How do the styles of the twenties compare with the styles of the sixties? The comment of Billy and the younger generation in the T.V. programme?


11. What impact did the television programme have? How did it present Billy? Sympathetically? Why did he play to the gallery? Was the appeal to producers by the compere too sentimental? Was this a humiliation for him?

12. What did you think of the commercials? Should he have made them? Did he still act well? Comically? Were the commercials a humiliation for him? Just something to do?

13. What was the impact of the finale as Silly watched his own films? The significance and symbolism of "Forget Me Not"? The memories that this evoked? The look on Billy Bright's face as he watched himself? How pathetic, how sad a summing-up of his life?

14. Did Dick Van Dyke give an effective performance as Billy? Did he submerge his own personality in that of Billy? The effect of Billy's son coming to see him, as played by Dick Van Dyke? Was this successful?

15. What insight into human nature did this film give?