Search - The Laugh Maker: Starring Jackie Gleason - PLUS - Confessions of a Nervous Man ~ Starring Art Carney - Double Feature - DVD on DVD

Good quality kinescopes

Phil S. | USA | 12/07/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"If you're a Gleason-Carney afficionado, then get ready to be rocked! Two rarer than rare "Studio One" episodes, typically live in the early 1950s.

Gleason plays an indiviudual with serious character flaws, self-centered and callous, who jells into a bright, energetic, sensitive artist, capable of captivating an audience, once he hears "you're on", and the TV cameras beam out his likeness.

His acting has some of his "Ralph Kramden" personae [interesting that it's written that he introduced "Fenwick Babbitt" on this telecast!) bleeds through, but mainly it's a very consistently dramatic performance with quite a bit of poignance.

In the early '50s, long before the explosion of Cable and the "thinning out" of high-minded or more intellectual presentations, such a thoughtful and nuanced show could be executed. Expression of the baser humanity was *implied* in a subtle, artful way, by the writers and directors.

Although, Gleason's character in "The Laughmaker" may be considered as partially based upon himself as TV Show Host, Art Carney's entry here is

based completely on the writer of "The Seven Year Itch", tracing his "nervous" days waiting for that positive review of his Broadway play to be published and his "nervous" days following that incredible success when he is encouraged to suppress his awesome talent in consideration of investor and career devastation following a conceivable flop follow-up. The ultimate "Catch 22" of the Arts!

Here's another chance to watch a *broad* TV variety show/sitcom spinoff character do something very dramatic. Though, deep fans and historians could always see that Carney's "Norton" was multi-dimensional."