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The casual approach (the camera moves from the line outside a ritzy theater to the gutter, where the sullied naïf tells his tale) belies the sagacious art of Steve Martin and Carl Reiner, who begin with a cracker joke and end with an analysis of Citizen Kane (cp. The Comic). The eponymous simpleton is the lonely white face in a clan of Mississippi farmers, stomping stiffly to soul music yet finding his rhythm at last in easy-listening pop. When guilelessness is the one asset on the road, it pays to have a pooch named Shithead leading the way and Jackie Mason kvetching by your side. The struggle for identity is registered in the hero's exultation at having his name in the phone book, precisely the name picked by M. Emmet Walsh's psychotic sniper ("Die, you random son of a bitch!"). A sojourn with the carnival reveals his special purpose, and introduces Bernadette Peters' pinchable cheeks—the stylistic linchpin might be Martin's lingering look of faux-suavity after licking the side of her face. "Next time you make love to your boyfriend... could you think of me?" Martin plays "You Belong to Me" on his ukelele by the beach, Peters in her sailor hat responds by producing a cornet out of nowhere, and the balance of smarm and lyricism clicks beautifully. The butler (Maurice Evans) braves his wife's fusillade in the mansion lawn, dealing with this Candide's nouveau-riche gaucherie is something else: "First no bamboo umbrellas for the wine, and now snails on the food!" Nothing less than a new form of comedy, ninety-four minutes of sweet surrealism from cat-juggling to the cockeyed outbreak that sends the protagonist on his existential spiral, packing ashtray and paddle game and remote control and... The concurrency with Being There is the cream of the jest. With Caitlin Adams, Mabel King, Richard Ward, Dick Anthony Williams, and Bill Macy.
--- Fernando F. Croce |