Steve Martin - The Wild and Crazy Comedy Collection (Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid / The Jerk / The Lonely Guy)

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Steve Martin's funniest three films, The Jerk, The Lonely Guy, and Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, are collected in the Wild and Crazy Comedy Collection with some corny bonus material that pales in comparison to Martin's stunning comedic performances. In The Lonely Guy, Martin's dejected character wanders New York streets with his fern plant searching for a lady to love. Scenes in which Martin calls his lady from his rooftop amidst scores of other lonely guys, or jogs into a diner wearing fake, spray-on sweat, seem more slapstick with each viewing. Martin's masterpiece is The Jerk, about Navin Johnson, a white guy born a "poor black child," who sets out for the city to become somebody. Navin, with hobo rucksack in tow, takes his dad's three rules--Don't trust whitey, Lord loves a workin' man, and See a doctor and get rid of it--to an extreme, after becoming a millionaire from inventing a reading glasses apparatus. Co-starring Bernadette Peters, The Jerk's bizarre humor still feels fresh in its satirical examination of race and class. Watching Navin change from a poor black child, to a gas station attendant, to a millionaire, to a drunken egomaniac, to a homeless bum, illustrates Martin's sheer talent for character sketching. If this Wild and Crazy Comedy Collection is a cake, The Jerk is definitely the icing. --Trinie Dalton

Customer Reviews:

lost in shipping.......2007-03-13

The first shipment got lost in the mail, so it took a little longer for me to get it but, once I got it the product was great. Thanks

Great movies!.......2007-03-10

If you enjoy Steve Martin , as I do, you will love these classics.

Average customer rating:

Unique Comedy
Clever
Brilliant in spots, but quite uneven.
He's just a wild and lonely guy
Man, did I really need this film.

The Lonely Guy
Starring: Steve Martin , Charles Grodin , Judith Ivey , Steve Lawrence , and Robyn Douglass
Director: Arthur Hiller
Manufacturer: Universal Studios
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: 0783230397
Release Date: 1998-12-15

Customer Reviews:

Unique Comedy.......2007-03-29

Given that this movie is nearly thirty years old, much of the content is dated. That being said, this movie is still hilarious. It all centers around Larry Hubbard played by Steve Martin, who on looking for love in NYC. The misadventures and mayhem that ensue can be gut wrenching. This film is similar in flavor to Airplane or Naked Gun. So if you like slap stick and sarcastic comedy, this flick may be a good fit.

Clever.......2007-01-27

Early Steve Martin films can be uneven, but the brilliance shines through in his understanding of human relationships.

This is a silly film. It has a number of 'throw away' gags. It als has a great love story behind all the silliness. It also helps that Steve Martin's silliness is genuinely funny.

Unfortunartly this DVD edition is not anamorphic widescreen. It is letterboxed, but the black bars are part of the picture, and the film transfer isn't very good.

Brilliant in spots, but quite uneven........2006-05-07

There were parts of this movie that were brilliant, others that were pretty good, and some that faltered a bit. Still, it addresses an aspect of life that is too often ignored in popular entertainment because it can be, well, awkward. The recent hit "The 40 year old Virgin" is a cousin of this movie, but not the same thing.

Steve Martin plays Larry Hubbard who is certainly no alpha male. He is a good enough guy and goes after the women society tells him he should pursue. This leads to him being walked over and pushed around by, in this movie, Danielle, but the name matters less than the type. As he leaves with all his belongings (he can carry them all plus the two bags of trash she asks him to take with him as she beds Raul), he ends up in a park. Warren Evans (played brilliantly by Charles Grodin) shows up with his meager belongings and asks Larry how long he has been a Lonely Guy. Larry is unaware of this term and slowly learns the pain and suffering the life of this class of persons endures unseen by most of society.

There are flashes of brilliance in this movie. My favorite is when Larry goes to a busy and upscale restaurant and asks for a table for one. The whole restaurant becomes instantly quiet and all attention is focused on him. As the captain leads him to his table a spotlight that could be used in an air raid shines on Larry all the way to his table. There are many other wonderful moments like this and I am sure you will have your own favorites.

The love story with Iris (delightfully done by Judith Ivey) is very good until they actually get together. Then things become quite awkward and artificial. In fact, the moment we learn she has had six husbands already, well, we leave wit and dive into shtick.

However, it is the relationship and insights shared between Warren and Larry that are really the heart of the movie and make it worth seeing. Grodin's Warren is the embodiment of the poor souls doomed to this existence and is an absolutely memorable character.

Good movie, but its unevenness keeps it from being great.

He's just a wild and lonely guy.......2006-02-05

While The Lonely Guy is first and foremost a comedy, one that descends into comic incredulity on a number of occasions, it really hits a few solid line drives in terms of the lonely guy angle. Steve Martin may be the star of this film, but Charles Grodin steals every scene he's in. He's the true lonely guy in this movie. Larry Hubbard, Martin's character, is really just a guy with really bad luck with women. After coming home to find his current girlfriend in bed with another man, Hubbard finds himself out on the street, struggling to get his bearings. That's where Warren Evans (Grodin) comes in. Warren really knows the ropes when it comes to loneliness, so he is more than qualified to instruct Hubbard in the art of living and being alone. Not all that much later, Larry meets up with Iris (Judith Ivey), a woman who tickles his fancy despite the fact she's been married more times than Larry has fingers on one hand, isn't all that attractive, is obviously lying through her teeth when she says she's thirty, and turns out to be something of a romantic psycho. Larry, of course, loses her phone number, beginning a whole series of misadventures serving to keep the two apart. Once he does meet up with Iris again, the world's most dysfunctional relationship begins. Iris, to grossly oversimplify things, doesn't want to be with a man she loves because she's afraid of being hurt again. All sorts of zany adventures ensue.

But what of Warren? Here's the guy I can identify with. While regular people are out having fun, Warren's playing chess with a sarcastic computer. He has life-size cut-outs of famous people all over the apartment so that it looks like someone is actually there when he throws a little party. He's a shell of a man who is never far from joining throngs of other lonely guys throwing themselves off the bridge downtown. Charles Grodin is just wonderful in this role. I must admit, though, that the two best scenes feature Martin. In one, we see him so desperate to find Iris again that he ends up going to the rooftop and shouting her name - only to be joined by lonely guys on all the nearby rooftops shouting the names of their own lost beloveds. In the other, we watch as Larry suffers the indignities of dining out alone. As he enters the restaurant, heads turn to stare as all conversation stops, and then a spotlight comes on following Larry all the way to his table. That's exactly what dining alone feels like.

The film ended up being a little sillier than I would have liked, particularly in terms of the relationship between Larry and Iris, and putting Steve Lawrence in your film is never a good thing (although we should all be thankful Edie wasn't with him), but The Lonely Guy is certainly a funny movie that should resonate with everyone who has ever been lonely (and I think that's just about every one of us).

Man, did I really need this film........2005-11-29

Thank you Steve Martin, after watching this film, I will be hanging from a light fixture.

Average customer rating:

The Lonely Man.
Like Henry King's "The Gunfighter," Levin equates victory with redemption...
Great Palance Western
Jack Palance at his best!

The Lonely Man
Starring: Jack Palance , Anthony Perkins , Neville Brand , Robert Middleton , and Elisha Cook Jr.
Director: Henry Levin
Manufacturer: Paramount
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B00008CMR2
Release Date: 2003-04-22

Amazon.com

Apart from the inherent clarity and richness of its black-and-white VistaVision--a wonderful format--The Lonely Man could be mistaken for a mediocre "adult Western" episode from '50s TV. The sets look like sets, not living spaces, and people trade ponderous, pause-laden dialogue instead of talking. Jack Palance plays an ex-gunslinger--a papier-mâché death's head--trying to reconnect with son Anthony Perkins, who's grown up (or not grown up) hating him. Meanwhile, gambler Neville Brand, once shot by Palance, waits for henchman Elisha Cook to pick up Palance's trail so other henchman Lee Van Cleef can kill him (got that?). The backstory is so weakly imagined, and the scenes so wanly directed, we have no idea how many years of history the characters have shared, or how many miles separate them as they move toward showdown. Elaine Aiken, a curiously hard-faced blonde "introduced" here, was scarcely seen on screen again. --Richard T. Jameson

Customer Reviews:

The Lonely Man........2007-01-11

This is a movie I have always liked, the quality of the disc was very good and I have watched it several times.

Like Henry King's "The Gunfighter," Levin equates victory with redemption..........2006-11-06

Jacob Wade (Jack Palance) used to be a celebrated shootist just stepping into middle age and mortally weary of having to be asked to leave every town he rides into... To make matters worse, a few notorious outlaws, led by the vile King (Neville Brand), are also out to take him down...

Now he tries to do something for his boy Riley (Anthony Perkins) by catching and breaking mustangs in Echo Canyon, the best wild horse country in the territory...

Complicating the situations further is Jacob's bad relationship with a kid who hates him, and Ada Marshall (Elaine Aiken), a young woman whom Jacob met in a gambling hall, and shot a man on account of her...

Here is a thinking person's Western that deals with one ex-gunman who also is unable to shake his past and whose ultimate goal for taking root again is by lynching...

Levin shows a dark, depressing, and sadly realistic face of the west... In fact, the entire movie is a drama of characters... But watching the film, you would be able to feel how Levin equates victory with redemption...

Great Palance Western.......2005-02-11

When we think of Jack Palance today, we often think of him as a bad guy, like in Batman or Shane. But back in the Fifties, he played a variety of roles, quite a few of them sympathetically.

And one of his best starring roles came in this film, about a gunfighter trying to live down his past, and build a relationship with his estranged son, played by Anthony Perkins. To complicate matters, Palance is going blind, which he keeps a secret from almost everyone, and he is also being pursued by a revenge-minded gambler, played by Neville Brand, who was shot by Palance some time back.

This is a beautifully filmed, poignant Western that deserves to be seen.

Jack Palance at his best!.......2001-06-20

In this western, the only real format to aficianados, Jack Palance displays every ability expected of the finest actors. He is gracious, honest, even having been one of the bad guys. He is courageous to a fault, facing down a number of bad people at once at terrible odds. He even rates a traitors loyalty.

This movie is a must-see if you liked "SHANE", and are tired of "RIO BRAVO" reruns, but like the genre.

Product Description

This DVD contains highlights from the Farm Aid 20th Anniversary Concert on September 18th 2005 at The Tweeter Center, Tinley Park, Illinois. Track Listing 1. That's Not Love To Me-Kate Voegele 2. Corn Fed-Shannon Brown 3. Drivin' Nails In My Coffin-Supersuckers 4. Lord Protect My Child-Susan Tedeschi 5. Alice's Restaurant-Arlo Guthrie 6. What Kind Of Woman-Bubby Guy & John Mayer 7. Independent thief-Kathleem Edwards 8. Suprise Valley-Widespread Panic 9. My Way-Los Lonely Boys 10. Red Dirt Girl-Emmylou Harris 11. Airline To Heaven-Wilco 12. Late Greats-Wilco 13. Young-Kenny Chesney 14. She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy-Kenny Chesney 15. Gravedigger-Dave Matthews 16. Ants Marching-Dave Matthews 17. Love & Happiness-John Mellencamp 18. Scarecrow-John Mellencamp 19. Crumblin' Down-John Mellencamp 20. Pink Houses-John Mellencamp 21. When God Made Me-Neil Young 22. This Old Guitar-John Mellencamp 23. Whiskey River-Willie Nelson 24. Still Is Still Moving To Me-Willie Nelson 25. Beer For My Horses-Willie Nelson 26. Crazy-Willie Nelson 27. Night Life/Listen To The Blues-Willie Nelson 28. On The Road-Willie Nelson

Classic Steve Martin (The Jerk/Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid/The Lonely Guy)

Average customer rating:

Unique Comedy
Clever
Brilliant in spots, but quite uneven.
He's just a wild and lonely guy
Man, did I really need this film.

Classic Steve Martin (The Jerk/Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid/The Lonely Guy)
Starring: Steve Martin
Manufacturer: Universal Studios
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B000035Z3X
Release Date: 2000-01-18

Customer Reviews:

Unique Comedy.......2007-03-29

Clever.......2007-01-27

Brilliant in spots, but quite uneven........2006-05-07

He's just a wild and lonely guy.......2006-02-05

Man, did I really need this film........2005-11-29

Thank you Steve Martin, after watching this film, I will be hanging from a light fixture.

Average customer rating:

Another Lonely Hitman
Starring: Ryo Ishibashi , Kazuhiko Kanayama , Asami Sawaki , Tatsuo Yamada , and Zenkichi Yoneyama
Director: Rokuro Mochizuki
Manufacturer: Arts Magic
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B0009E33AQ
Release Date: 2005-05-31

Description

After serving ten years for killing a rival gang's boss, Tachibana is expected to pick up where he left off in his career as hitman for the Hirakawa Syndicate.

When he is given Yuki, a prostitute, as a `welcome back' present, Tachibana finds himself drawn into looking after her, rescuing her both from a serious drug habit and a brutal pimp. When the pimp, whom he has beaten up, turns out to be a member of the larger Hokushin gang, it proves to have dire consequences for both Tachibana and Yuki.

Customer Reviews:

A MUST OWN!.......2000-03-22

"The forgotten 1958 film about Tinsletown, LOST LONELY & VICIOUS is so silly it mskes the real place seem sane by comparison."

Amazon.com essential video

One of Humphrey Bogart's finest performances dominates this unusual 1950 film noir, which focuses less on the murder mystery at the center of its plot than on the investigation's devastating effect on a fragile romance. For Bogart, already a noir icon, the Andrew Solt script afforded an opportunity to explore a more complex and contradictory role--an antiheroic persona in line with the actor's most accomplished and absorbing triumphs throughout his career.

For maverick director Nicholas Ray, the film posed the challenge of taking crime dramas beyond their usual formulas and into a more mature realm, as well as a chance to cast a jaundiced eye on the film industry itself. Its protagonist is Dixon Steele, a Hollywood screenwriter with an acerbic wit and a violent temper. Tasked with adapting a bestseller, he meets a hatcheck girl who's read the book, hoping to glean its highlights before writing the script. When she's found murdered, Steele becomes the prime suspect, and a tightening knot of suspicion forms around the writer.

Steele's only, inconclusive witness is a pretty new neighbor, Laurel (Gloria Grahame), and the couple fall in love even as the pressure mounts. At first the new relationship is a tonic to the hard-boiled writer, who plunges into his script with a renewed vigor and discipline. But as the police continue to shadow him, Steele's own penchant for violence erupts against friends, strangers, and even Laurel herself, whose feelings are increasingly eclipsed by suspicion that her lover is a murderer, and fear that he'll harm her.

Bogart conveys Steele's world-weariness and underlying vulnerability, and manages the delicate task of making both his romantic yearning and sudden, murderous rages equally convincing. Ultimately, that performance and Grahame's sympathetic work elevate In a Lonely Place into what has been called "an existential love story" more than a crime drama. --Sam Sutherland

Customer Reviews:

Tries hard but doesn't succeed........2007-08-23

An ambitious movie, but not one of Bogart's better ones, mainly because of the story and timing. Classified as a noir, although it never occurred to me while watching. Bogart is a Hollywood script writer with a bad temper and a tendency to violence. Suspected of a murder he didn't commit, he falls in love with his neighbor, Gloria Grahame, in one of her bigger roles. Their relationship is tortured by the murder suspicion and Bogart's temper, which eventually destroys the relationship. An unhappy ending. A tragic love affair. The movie focuses on the "complex" psychology of the tortured antihero, but it never really works.

Love Among the Ruined.......2007-07-30

Nicholas Ray will be cemented in pop culture history, anonymously, as "the guy who directed REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE." This is a travesty on two levels: One, REBEL isn't even Ray's best movie, and two, because many think that the aching heart came from James Dean's raw performance. While Dean is heartwrenchingly good, REBEL would not have half of its power without Ray, a maverick American director whose best and most personal films would sympathize with the loners and rebels always living by night and outside of conformity. Many critics of Ray's times thought his films were melodramatic and very few were financial successes. However, like all amazing directors, Ray's films were about 20 years ahead of their times--the themes of a man alone and paranoia would become relevant with 70s films such as Scorsese's TAXI DRIVER. Ray saw the future in 1950, and indeed, IN A LONELY PLACE stands the test of time today.

The incomparable Humphrey Bogart plays Dix, a talented but violent and washed-up screenwriter given the dull task of adapting a trashy novel to the screen. Instead of reading the thing, he asks a hatcheck girl to summarize it. The next morning, she is found murdered and Dix is the prime suspect until his cool neighbor Laurel (Gloria Grahame, Ray's estranged wife at the time) clears him. Despite Laurel's guarded demeanor and Dix's deep internal demons, the two fall in love and find inner peace with their blossoming relationship. But their love cannot last long (this wouldn't be a true Nicholas Ray film if everything wrapped up in a nice pink bow), as distrust on Laurel's part and Dix's paranoia due to the ongoing murder investigation threaten their last chance at happiness and love.

Like all amazing movies, IN A LONELY PLACE has so much more than what meets the eye, full of sometimes violently true observations on love and paranoia. Often considered an underrated masterpiece of noir, that is both valid and false. True, there is a crime that steers the plot forward, but the murder is a MacGuffin so that these two bruised souls can find each other. And yes, Laurel is a cool and mysterious blonde, but she becomes Dix's savior and redemption, not his undoing. This movie had the bad luck of being released the same year as ALL ABOUT EVE and, more famously, SUNSET BLVD., all three scathing looks at celebrity. Although this movie was actually released before the other two, perhaps the subject matter was just too dark--did anybody really want to see Bogart as a potential murderer in a day and age when actors were movie stars first, selling variations of their personas? Dix's disillusionment comes both from the script but also from Ray; a talented director, he was a victim of the studio system and was forced to make projects that are obviously beneath him (indeed, the novel Dix is hired to adapt can be seen as a variation on Ray's "woman's picture" BORN TO BE BAD, which bears little of his fingerprints), and even his personal project ON DANGEROUS GROUND was cut up by Howard Hughes and slapped on with an uncharacteristic happy ending. This film can be seen as a thesis on a system that is only interested in selling popcorn over making something personal, which is what made Ray so appealing, and what solidified his status as an auteur.

Off-screen, both Ray and Bogart were vehemently against the HUAC Communist witch hunts (Ray would further develop this theme with JOHNNY GUITAR), and the murder investigation and the tension it causes is an obvious--and, in 1949, early--allegory for the Red Scare. Instead of dating this movie further, it only enriches its effectiveness. After all, we live in a post-9/11 world where we accept the fact that surveillance and spying is a part of everyday life, and fear leads to violence.

Though filled so many underlying themes, it's impossible not to notice the external aspects of the film--most obviously, the acting. As said earlier, Bogart came from an era when recycling your personality was considered acting. That routine became dull very quickly, but when an actor dared to do something different, there was instant magic. That magic happens in this dark gem. You can almost see the tough facade cracking under the pressure, the undeniable vulnerability. It's hard to think of how many actors of any era could pull this off, making us root for a potentially murderous man, even when we don't entirely trust him. The movie never illuminates what makes Dix so violent, never showing the roots of his internal demons. There are only subtle clues dropped; we know that Dix is a war veteran. His faithful agent Mel tells Laurel in a moment of doubt that Dix, whom he's known for 20 years, has a violent streak that is as a part of him "as the color of his eyes or the shape of his head." And it is this ambiguity that is also the glory of the movie; there is no flashback to a troubled childhood or combat duty. For all we know, Dix could've been like this his whole life. Bogart, through impeccable body language, shows us how his creativity and passion lies right next door to his exploding temper; even as he professes his love for Laurel, his hands possess her neck as if he is ready to strangle her, a foreshadowing to the pessimistic climax. He shows us that Dix's very temperament stems from his insecurities and very human desire for love. You feel the heaviness of Dix's emotional baggage, and never before was Bogart more world-weary and exhausted in a movie. Never again would he come this close to a complete performance.

The role of Laurel Gray was one clearly intended for Lauren Bacall, Bogart's off-screen wife. As the executive producer, Bogart naturally wanted his wife opposite him, but Warner Bros. refused to release her from her contract. There's no doubt that she would've made a fine Laurel, but Gloria Grahame gives an air or worldliness that Bacall could never have alluded to. Besides, would audiences even have wanted to see (in the original shooting script, at least) the beloved Bogart kill Bacall in the heat of the climatic argument? Grahame more than makes a great Laurel, a woman at once strong, vulnerable, guarded and sly. She and Bogart make an amazing duo, regularly passing witty comebacks, then slowly seeing the distrust and insecurities in each other. She and Nicholas Ray quietly separated during filming; this movie is a testament to their professionalism under a tough situation. In a role that relieves her of playing the lovable floozy, this may also be Grahame's best performance.

While all three are known for bigger movies (Ray went on to direct REBEL while Grahame and Bogart would go on to win Oscars), their professional peak may have been this gem. It is because of the actors' trust in Ray that he was able to craft such deep performances, and their own bravery to play such flawed yet real characters that we remember--and still root for--Dix and Laurel's tragically doomed love affair in which nobody walks away a free man and humans are prisoners of their own fate. There is no ray of hope, only Nicholas Ray's powerful and ageless beauty of a film.

a movie that is about so many things.........2007-07-14

In a lonely place is not a very typical movie of the early 50's.. Often people have said that it was nicholas ray's indictment of the film industry.. In any case, it is an excellent film which is not really about a murder so much as a relationship.. Boogie's role as a famous hollywood screenwriter is one of his best most subtle roles and he really does come accross quite well as the hair-trigger tempered talented yet extremely needy writer.. and his moodswings often show us just what a fine line some people walk on from being relatively normal and being a crazed murderous lunatic..
Nicholas Rays direction really captures the living surroundings well.. most of the movie takes place in dix steele's apartment with a few interesting scenes set by the beach, in a bar, and at the police station.. One of the scenes that really stands out is the scene in the car after leaving the beach - where bogie's character projects his anger on to an innocent person on the road.. Road rage apparently has been around for years and is merely another guise for internal problems which are projected upon a convenient victim..
Though not at all what i expected this film noir to be - I was very satisfied with the extremely tense performances and direction of this fine film and i would really like to watch it again as i think there are a lot of subtleties that i missed out on...

good chemistry between Bogard and Gloria Grahame.......2007-06-25

Both are fine. Unusual role for Bogard as a Hollywood screewriter suspected of being a serial killer. Gloria Grahame, the woman next door Bogart is dating, starts having suspicions of her own about him.

No point going further into the plot, since it's been covered by others. Will only say it's a love story/murder mystery for grownups: Is he the killer, or isn't he? And if he is, will he end up doing away with his lovely neighbor Gloria?

Movie is slightly different from the book. Still, certainly worth seeing. For fans of Bogart, Nick Ray--and Gloria Grahame.

Classic psychological thriller.......2007-06-15

A down-on-his-luck screenwriter's (Humphrey Bogart) violent, antisocial temperament makes him a prime suspect in the murder of a cocktail waitress and ultimately alienates the woman he loves (Gloria Graham). Bogart's performance is sometimes perfunctory and unconvincing in the fight scenes, but he projects a frightening intensity in numerous intimate confrontations with other characters. He creates a character that Graham could believably fall in love with and then just as believably begin to fear later.

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