RECOMMENDATIONS: 5 DOCUMENTARIES ABOUT SHOWBIZ PEOPLE

I love a good documentary. Here are 5 documentaries, each about the lives and careers of showbiz people, from Maggie Smith to Conan O'Brien. Rather than long verbose reviews, I've tried to keep things direct, short and punchy. These are capsule reviews of each documentary. 

Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop 

Funny and strangely emotional documentary about O’Brien’s cross-country comedy tour following his axing from the Tonight Show in 2011. Fans of O’Brien will love the behind the scenes peek at his mental state, the inner workings of the tour, and eventual reemergence as TBS late-night host. Not likely to convert any Jay Leno devotees. Would have benefitted from showing more of the actual tour show. CAST: Conan O’Brien, Andy Richter, Sona Movsesian. DIRECTOR: Rodman Flender. 

Tea with the Dames (aka Nothing Like a Dame) 

Four legendary actresses and old friends gather for drinks to gossip, reminisce, talk a little trash, and reflect on their film careers, theatre, Shakespeare, damehood, Laurence Olivier, and hearing aides. Endlessly re-watchable, charming and even bawdy, a great insight and historical preservation, not just about the four women, but the bygone world and business that begat them. Wish the film had been longer. CAST: Dame Maggie Smith, Dame Judi Dench, Dame Eileen Atkins, Dame Joan Plowright. DIRECTOR: Roger Michell.

The Super Dave Osborne Movie 

A great meta-bio about the late Bob Einstein (Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Marty Funkhauser). This self-aware and informal documentary traces Einstein’s incredible career and life, from growing up in a showbiz family, to the death of his father (live on the radio), to becoming a variety show producer, and finally a much-beloved, off-beat comedian. Larry David, Steve Martin, Albert Brooks (Bob’s brother), and many more share tales about him. Director Danny Gold constructs a movie that captures and permeates Einstein’s humor and personality. CAST: Bob Einstein, Sarah Silverman, David Letterman. DIRECTOR: Danny Gold.

Dreams with Sharp Teeth 

Acerbic and mercurial, but also immensely talented and prolific, the late writer Harlan Ellison is an ideal subject for a documentary.  An author of more than 1,700 short stories, novellas, screenplays, teleplays (including the much revered episode of Star Trek, "The City on the Edge of Forever"), and essays, Ellison became equally known for his wild antics and brawling with studios and producers. (He once mailed a dead gopher through fourth-class mail to a publisher during a contract dispute.) A shame that at times his personality overshadowed his talent. Fortunately, this excellent flick cracks open Ellison’s public character and persona, allowing a better look at the complex, endearing human within. CAST: Harlan Ellison, Robin Williams, Neil Gaiman. DIRECTOR: Erik Nelson.  

The Boys: The Sherman Brothers’ Story 

The legendary Sherman Brothers composed many Disney classics and toe-tappers (The Jungle Book, Mary Poppins, “It’s a Small World"). In their personal lives, they had a strained relationship and rarely spoke in later years. No jolly holiday. The film delves into their childhood, musical influences, and time working with Uncle Walt. While the movie does shy away from expounding upon the exact source of their estrangement, it doesn’t affect the overall the experience. The film is packed with plenty of revelatory backstory that the directors (Gregory Sherman and Jeffrey Sherman, sons of Richard and Robert, respectively) don’t need to air out the family secrets. This one is catnip for Disneyphiles and music lovers. CAST: Richard M. Sherman, Robert B. Sherman. 

-T.Z. 

FATHER'S DAY WITH THE THREE STOOGES

It’s ironic that Shemp Howard always makes me think of my father. Though Dad is such a die-hard Curly fan, the first Three Stooges movies he ever showed me were three Shemp shorts, compiled on a late 80s VHS. I still have the VHS somewhere in my garage. Luckily, all three shorts are free on YouTube (and in pretty decent quality). 

Now I’m not going to wade into the hotly contested debate that all Stooge fans have: Curly vs. Shemp. Curly was one of the most brilliant comedians ever. Anyone with the unfortunate task of replacing him would have a rough time in comparison. Shemp was a very funny comedian, whose style is uniquely his own. Comparisons with Curly are unfair. 

Shemp-shorts get smacked down for being inferior to the Curly ones. There’s some truth to it; they’re generally not as good. But the fault doesn’t lie with Shemp. Budget cuts, a change in directors, and the advancing ages of the Stooges are really the factors contributing to some decrease in overall quality. And another factor: Shemp was dead for the making of several shorts. Shemp died unexpectedly at the age of 60 in a taxi cab with some friends. (When I lived in LA, I attempted to drive the approximate route the cab took that fateful night). 

Columbia Pictures, which produced the Stooges shorts, promised 8 shorts to exhibitors for 1956, but only 4 were completed by the time of Shemp’s demise. Studio boss Harry Cohn turned down Moe’s offer to refigure the act into “The Two Stooges”. Instead, new shorts were created by recycling old footage, mixing in new footage, and using a Shemp-lookalike, Joe Palma, to fill in the gaps. 

These shorts run the gamut from cleverly constructed to shoddy patchwork. As a lover of bizarre trash, I happen to find these recycled shorts completely fascinating. In fact, all three on the aforementioned VHS are recycled remakes of earlier films. The second half of Husbands Beware comes from the most famous Shemp short, Brideless Groom, best remembered for the immortal line, “hold hands you lovebirds.” 

In the first half, Shemp marries Moe and Larry off to his tyrannical sisters, who force the boys to make them dinner. (In order to pluck the turkey, Moe and Larry lather the bird up with shaving cream, then give it the once-over with a straight razor.) The second half pilfers from Brideless Groom completely. Moe and Larry have just a few hours to get Shemp married, so he can inherit his uncle’s fortune. While slightly bifurcated, it’s a very funny short that shows off Shemp’s very singular verbal and facial reactions. He takes several very real punches, slaps, and whacks from Stooge regular, Christine McIntyre. 

The second short on the VHS, Musty Musketeers, also recycles from an earlier film, Fiddler’s Three. Moe, Larry, and Shemp are fiddlers to Ol’ King Cole. The king forbids them from marrying their girlfriends until the Princess is wed. When an evil magician kidnaps the Princess, it’s up to the Stooges to rescue her. Upon revisiting this one, I actually found it better than I remembered. There’s some snappy wordplay and some of the most brutal Stooge violence. (Moe nails a horseshoe onto Shemp’s foot).

In Wham-Bam-Slam!, Moe and Larry try to (unsuccessfully) cure Shemp of a persistent toothache. There’s two great gags involving pancakes. In the first, Shemp mistakes his wife’s powder puff for a pancake and spends a very long and very funny take attempting to chew it. In the other, Larry makes an overly elaborate preparation of his breakfast, adding whipped cream, an entire stick of butter, and mustard to his pancake. 

Larry also gets my favorite line in the short. The boys have set up a tent in the living room, tying it down to the doorknobs. When Larry’s wife opens the door, the tent collapses on them, prompting Larry to exclaim, “Next time you come in, knock first and then don’t come in!”

Wham-Bam-Slam! apes most of its material from Pardon My Clutch, but among the new footage is a pretty good scene where a live lobster falls into Shemp’s foot-bath. Of the three on the VHS, this one is my favorite. Larry and Shemp have great reaction shots, and Moe dolls out some great Stooge slapstick of this period. 

Now don’t get things twisted. These shorts don’t show the Three Stooges firing on all cylinders; they’re not even the best Shemp shorts. But I still recommend you check them out. These were ones I enjoyed watching with my dad, maybe you will enjoy watching them with yours. 

-T.Z. 

ORCA PART II: THE CRAZIEST JAWS RIP-OFF NEVER MADE!

 

After Gilbert Gottfried’s unexpected passing, I went back and re-listened to some of my favorite episodes of his podcast, Gilbert Gottfried’s Amazing Colossal Podcast, including his 2016 interview with director Joe Dante. A must listen for movie fans, it’s required listening for fellow Jaws fanatics. In the interview, Dante talks about his short lived involvement with a potentially bug-f@#ck crazy sequel to 1977’s Orca. 

One of the many gifts Jaws bestowed upon this undeserving world was the creation of a brand new film mode: the Jaws rip-off. Mere months after the film’s release in 1975, this nascent genre exploded across movie screens. Producers and studios attempted to reproduce the Jaws magic by getting kinky with the “formula”. Some kept the shark (like Mako: The Jaws of Death, Great White, Tintorera), others swapped out the Carcharodon carcharias for other surly members of the animal kingdom (Grizzly, Barracuda, Tentacles). 

But the most successful entries were those that forsook pretension for humor and satire; ones that were loud and proud to crib from the Jaws playbook. The Citizen Kane of Jaws clones remains the Joe Dante directed Piranha. (Not coincidentally, Piranha and the equally enjoyable Alligator both come well aided with self-aware, satiric, and slightly meta screenplays from the great John Sayles.) 

Piranha was so popular that Mr. Steven Spielberg himself roundly praised the film as “the best of the Jaws rip-offs”. Spielberg and Dante went on to have a long collaboration on films like Gremlins and Twilight Zone: The Movie. But Piranha would also net Dante the interest of mega-producer Dino De Laurentiis, the man (and cash register) behind another Jaws copy-and-paste, Orca. 

Starring Dumbledore #1, Richard Harris, Orca is a sort of Free Willy story, but featuring buckets more carnage, leg biting, and a truly soul-splintering scene in which the title animal’s mate aborts a whale fetus onto the blood strewn deck of a fishing trawler after succumbing to her violent death throes. Because Orca mistakes itself for Othello and gets bogged down in it’s own self-importance, the movie never truly swims to the finish. 

Despite being only a minor box-office success, this didn’t stop Signor De Laurentiis from dreaming up a potential sequel, Orca Part II. De Laurentiis went for Dante to helm the picture. As Dante explains, after Piranha, he received many offers to direct similarly themed films. But De Laurentiis pitch had to be the most bat-s#$t. 

“Orca is-a crazy! He’s-a-gonna kill everybody!” De Laurentiis said to Dante (colored by the Italian-born producer’s extraordinarily thick accent). In the planned follow-up, the killer whale would take his revenge-seeking from the icy waters of Newfoundland to terra firma itself.  “Orca was going to go on land,” Dante explained, “and kill people and leave seaweed at the scene of the crime.” 

Go ahead and re-read that sentence again. 

Here, I’ll even type it again for you: “Orca was going to go on land and kill people and leave seaweed at the scene of the crime.” 

Dante concluded, “This actually didn’t strike me as a particularly viable idea. I managed to talk him out of it.” 

Ultimately, the killer whale’s land-based crime spree never made the backstroke to celluloid, and Dante would get involved in another aborted Jaws project (National Lampoon’s Jaws 3, People 0). But this writer can’t help but wonder what the butterfly effect might have been had Orca Part II become a reality. Would we have Jaws 5 on Venus? Alligator 3 meets Santa Claus? Maybe the Grizzly follow-up, Grizzly Goes 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, that all those brown bear enthusiasts have long clamored for. 

We’ll allow fan fiction to author those intrepid tales. 

I highly recommend you check out the 2016 Joe Dante episode of Gilbert Gottfried’s Amazing Colossal Podcast (and the podcast in general). If you want to discover more un-produced Jaws projects, then check out John LeMay’s easy-breezy book on the subject, Jaws Unmade: The Lost Sequels, Prequels, Remakes, and Rip-offs.  

-T.Z.