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Thursday, Nov 20, 2008
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Cinderella of the Bronx: The Life of Reilly opens December 7th |
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| Cinderella of the Bronx: The Life of Reilly opens December 7th | ||
| by Maggie Bloodstone -
SGN A&E Writer One could do much worse in one's lifetime than be famous for having the most memorable laugh in show business history. Even if you don't know who Charles Nelson Reilly was, as the 20-somethings interviewed at the opening of The Life Of Reilly confess, you know who he was. All you need is to hear that infectious, hiccupy chortle, and you know Horatio J. Hoodoo is in the house. I saw my share of The Ghost And Mrs. Muir, not to mention Laugh-In and Love, American Style, et al, but the image of "Chuck" Reilly that stays with me is the pipe-smoking, deceptively low-key gent of The Match Game who consistently tossed off some of the most biting double entendres to ever sail over my 16-year-old head. American pop culture has been overstocked with personalities known for One Thing Only since the earliest days of Vaudeville, and the artists lucky or unlucky enough to gain fame for that One Thing very seldom get the opportunity to do anything else- often, with good reason. But in The Life Of Reilly, Barry Polterman & Frank Anderson give a mere Icon his overdue Due as an honest-to-god, no-kidding Artist. (Charles Nelson Reilly does Hamlet? Geddouttahere!) The film is a document of Reilly's final performance of his one-man show, Save It For The Stage, which he performed the last five years of his life to enthusiastic (if somewhat surprised) response. It begins on an unintentionally ironic note as Reilly relates the humor in being confronted with his own mortality too often in the last 20-some years by erroneous obituaries and strangers shrieking "I thought you were dead!" to his face in the supermarket (Reilly passed away for real in May of this year). Reilly clearly had to develop a sense of humor as early as possible: his mother, who answered his every concern with heartwarming phrases like "Save it for the stage" and "I should have kept the afterbirth and thrown the baby away!" was compelled to carry a baseball bat with her around their Bronx 'hood as protection against the neighbors who took exception to being referred to as "kikes" and "dagos." His father, a film poster artist for Paramount, devolved into alcoholism and institutionalization after being forbidden by his wife to take a job in Hollywood offered by Walt Disney. His beloved Aunt Lil was given a lobotomy to cure a hip injury. His Uncle Benny's idea of a good time was attending the funerals of strangers. And the neighbors still considered Charles the "odd" member of the family. So, what other refuge for an "odd," imaginative kid in such a situation but show biz? Young Charles goes from raiding his Mom's sewing basket to create puppets for epics like Cinderella Of The Bronx to the title role in his grade school production of Christopher Columbus - The Man, and eventually to the legendary Uta Hagen's Tuesday morning acting class. Unintimidated by the then-unformed abilities of classmates such as Jack Lemmon, Steve McQueen, & Gene Hackman, and undaunted by the NBC president who told him ,"They don't let queers on television" (a disingenuous proclamation if there ever was one), Reilly became a fixture in Off-Broadway and eventually On-Broadway theater (his first big gig was understudy to Paul Lynde in Bye Bye Birdie), and finally ubiquity on the small screen. The kid who was "too queer" for TV appeared on Johnny Carson over 100 times. Reilly's energy and passion throughout his performance would be exhilarating for a 30-year old, much less someone who's plied his trade over a half-century - Life Of Reilly is the perfect encore to a distinguished (if underappreciated) career, and Reilly plays himself as if he knows very well that this is what he will be remembered for after the umpteen hundred cartoons he voiced are forgotten. He was, first and foremost, a comedian, but when he utilizes his trademark strangulated yelp to punctuate a serious reminiscence, it's not a schtick, but a genuine Cri du Coeur: I've had a life too weird for a Tennessee Williams play, and it's fucking funny! His story is every bit as engaging and masterfully told as a Spalding Gray monologue, and Polterman/Anderson have obviously taken lessons from films like Swimming to Cambodia in the art of effectively capturing one guy on stage talking, following Reilly around the stage at a respectful distance, catching the perfect gesture, angle, and expression every time. Unlike the Gray adaptations, though, they include music (typical indie-film stuff that doesn't sound like something Reilly would have been into), and lace the performance with video clips and stock footage - cute, but superfluous. Gray didn't need filler, and neither does Reilly, who finishes the story of his life with a charmingly absurd anecdote involving a pelican. Olivier couldn't have been more affecting as King Lear (and he definitely wouldn't have been as funny). See this movie, buy the DVD when it comes out, invite your friends over for a viewing party, memorize choice lines and repeat them for years to come, and watch it again and again to remind you just how fucking funny life is. An Icon deserves no less. |
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