Customer Reviews

Lenny

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This biographical picture, of '60's comedian Lenny Bruce, features an outstanding; stellar, performance,by Dustin Hoffman (and people thought he could only play parts like in "The Graduate") as the controversial (for the time) Lenny Bruce. Valerie Perrine, as Honey, his stripper wife is gorgeous. His performance, judged as obscene, would be fairly tame today (but remember, this was the '60's). The authorities used this as a pretext to shut him up (much like they'd use the "Patriot Act" today) because his political comments hit too close to home. A great movie about a funny, controversial, but ultimately sad figure and the end leaves some speculation as to whether Mr. Bruce's death was a suicide or an overdose. Anyway, great movie, but not one for the younger kids (although probably they've already heard and seen enough on tv, in music; particularly rap, and in other media that [as stated earlier] to make anything in this movie seem tame). Also has Jan Miner [if the name's unfamiliar, think "Madge" the "Palmolive" lady in the commercials.]

Bob Fosse was one the more brilliant minds in the story of the cinema . Gifted with that gaze of genius , left us several treasures Cabaret , Lenny , All that jazz , Star 80 , Sweet charity are undoubtly his better achievements.
But this movie became a reference issue. Lenny Bruce became a hard challenge for any actor. But what Hoffman got with this role still surpases , in my point of view all his next achievements.
Valerie Perrine never reached the highest peak as actress with this breathtaking performance. Her role deserved her the Prize as best actress in 1975 in the Cannes International Film Festival.
The film is deeply bitter and tolds the slow but progressive decadence of Bruce Lenny : in his private life and in his creative gifts as a stand-up comedian. Filmed in glorious black and white . this film is one my personal one of the major cult movies in any time.

If "dated" means that a movie is so much of its time that it does not resonate in form or content with people's present sensibilities and experiences, Lenny is anything BUT dated.I was having a conversation with a man several decades younger than me when the life and work of Lenny Bruce came to mind. I gave my friend my copy of Lenny Bruce's biography to read but then I remembered as well the movie, which I must have seen for the first time in 1974 when the film was released. I wondered why, in all the years of reruns that have intervened, I have never seen Lenny listed on TV schedules or in review theatres. So I looked on line to see if it was available and lo and behold, I found it easily on Amazon's website. I purchased it and took it over to the mother of the younger man to whom I gave the biography and we watched it, in black and white. We were immediately captivated by it, as I remember being the first time I saw it. The acting, not only by Dustin Hoffman and Valerie Perrine in the leading roles but also by the supporting cast, is superb. The characters ring true in ways that rarely happen in contemporary mainstream movies. I think a professional movie critic would use the word "realist" to describe the film maker's approach, especially about the shots of audiences during Lenny's performances. It is not over the top like the hyper-realism of many movies that claim that label. The camera creates for the viewer a sense that he/she is out there in that audience, looking for a seat. But most important to me is the "message" of the movie. In one poignant scene, a usually cocky and somewhat arrogant but now desperate and obsessed Lenny begs a judge, "don't take away my words!" as he is being hauled out of the courtroom because he insisted on speaking when we was ordered to be silent. Through his cutting and "offensive" humour, Bruce tried to remove barriers between people by taking the sting out of the words that were being used to construct them: barriers prominent in the U.S. of the 1950s and 60s between black people, white people, jewish people, italian people, polish people, male people, female people. Repressed speech represses the soul. What could have more relevance in today's world? There is, however, a sense in which this film IS dated. Today in mainstream and to some extent alternative venues, movies like this are rare. It brings the viewer inside a moment and allows her/him to see the not perfect lives of not perfect people as, at the same time, flawed and courageous attempts to redeem the world from the bottom up.

For a film that's over 30 years old, this looks great. What helps matters is that it's black and white, which is easier to clean up in the post production process. Really though, it looks like it could have been filmed last year. Dustin Hoffman channels Lenny Bruce in a film directed by Bob Fosse. Yes it's a weird thing, there's no denying that. Bob Fosse, who was better known for his choreography (Chicago, Cabaret), turned to directing as another outlet of his creative forces. As for Hoffman, looking at his body of work makes this role in particular standout. I'm surprised that he chose to play Bruce, an outspoken, angry man. After all, Hoffman is usually more the weirdo or mealy-mouthed villain. Then again, what was Bruce if not a slightly weird guy, who ultimately was shy except when he inhabited the stage.

Lenny Bruce was the driving force behind making comedy into the socially challenging medium it is today. The structure is episodes of his life tied together with commentary from his agent, his wife (played by Valerie Perrine), and other important characters in his life. Lenny was one of the original dirty mouthed comedians, but with a point. He was taking on the establishment, and the hypocrisy of contemporary society. He was arrested and tried several times on obscenity charges, for things like using the word c**sucker during a public performance. He also had a problem with drug abuse, largely due to the influence of his addict wife. She was a headline stripper when they met, and he was a young comedian. Bruce died never really seeing the fruits of his passion.

Fosse was an accomplished director, managing to channel some mavericks of his own in the direction of this movie. With its loose cutting style and drifting camera, the film at points feels like a Cassavete's film and this style works perfectly with the subject matter. Because of this, Lenny has a pure authenticity that's impossible to shake. There never feels like a false moment and Hoffman is particularly great (he was nominated for this role.) All of Lenny's acts are performed nearly verbatim, and all the court and interview transcripts are pulled from his life. Given that Bruce was a man under constant surveillance while he performed, so that the recordings could be used against him in court, allowing these same words to redeem him is Lenny's greatest accomplishment. Even if he doesn't know it, Lenny was right all along. I honestly enjoyed this film and like to thank JoeyD. for recommend it to me.

'Lenny' is a really awesome film about a comedian named Lenny Bruce. I normally don't like Dustin Hoffman, but this has to be his best role and performance. Warning though, it is in black and white and extremely depressing.

Dustin Hoffman convincingly plays the late comedian Lenny Bruce. Lenny Bruce may have been funny to some people, but others thought he was very foul and cruel with his humor. Very Adults Only material. Valerie Perrine plays a stripper who Lenny falls in love with. Jan Miner, who you may remember as the "Palmolive" lady in the commercials we saw for many years, play's Lenny's mother. Gary Morton ( Once a comedian himself and later,Lucille Ball's second husband) plays "Sherman Hart". Elaine Joyce also plays a stripper. Lenny Bruce was arrested for using obscene language in a nightclub in the State of california. Later, he studied law obsessivly. In court, he presented his case. By jury, he won and was found innocent. But still the police had to be present at his nightclub acts. Rarely shown on regular television anymore and if so is heavily edited. It's best to see this film in its entirity on DVD. British Board of Film censors gave film an "X".

Quality- filmed in black and white, the print is awesome- clear with great sound. Excellent production.
Acting- first-rate: Hoffman and Perrine are awesome.
The tragedy that this films reveals is that comics like Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy had acts that were ten times more obscene than Bruce's act. Lenny was hounded by authorities, his career destroyed by constant police harassement and money problems due to legal fees (lawyers). There should be a new investigation into his case, with the appropriate authorities brought to trial for illegal harassement and evidence tampering. Lenny was simply a target, possibly because he was Jewish. But the film is great, very arty, and it also shows how quickly he was forgotton after he died, and how callous his friends were later on when giving interviews.

Dustin Hoffman is Lenny Bruce - controversial loudmouth, frequent defendant and doomed icon. By now, we all know that Lenny Bruce was famous for making people laugh at hearing things they didn't want to hear (as long as they weren't middle-aged white men involved in law enforcement). Bruce earned the adoration of fans even as his routines and addictions brought him into repeated contact with the police. Surprisingly, despite his eager exploration at the dark side of everything, Bruce manages to achieve some real happiness - finding love with a similarly off-center stripper (a very pre-"Can't Stop the Music" Valerie Perrine), and even triumphing (eventually) in one of his prosecutions.

The film is presented in verite black and white, and tells the story of Bruce through interviews with the people who knew him - Perrine, his lawyers, his promoters and agents. The light is low, hinting of the gloomy circumstances that have made the story of Bruce's life a subject of such interest. Most of the characters looks as if they were interviewed in dark closets or on darkened stages. The film slyly suggests we can recognize the villains and heroes of Bruce's story according to how grieved they are in reliving his tortured life. By the end, Bruce was stretched too thin by additional brushes with the law and problems both medical and financial.

This flick is actually full of surprises. For one thing, we've got the fragility of Bruce's heroic façade. Though resolute in the face of the establishment on stage, Lenny seems to come apart when facing obscenity charges. Bruce spoke to an America full of people ready to go to jail to speak their mind on civil rights or against the war, but Dustin Hoffman's Lenny is terrified of going to prison. Facing certain conviction, he becomes snippy - his routines degenerate into monologues about his trials. Another surprise is Bruce's feelings about obscenity. Though he knows he's pushing the envelope, Hoffman's Bruce doesn't think himself obscene, and takes it personally when others describe him that way (especially during his trials when police officers' testimony essentially requires that they give their version of his act - you're spoiling the act! He yells at them). Hoffman's Bruce isn't looking to fight for the right to be obscene - merely to stretch the bounds of what's acceptable; he struggles for a chance to perform his routine for the court, knowing he can prove that he's not obscene. In the end, all is futile, and the law takes away the one thing Bruce can't afford to lose - his words.

Though showing many faces of Lenny Bruce, the flick seems to be missing Bruce's biggest target: himself Bob Fosse directed both this and his own semi-autobiographical "All That Jazz". While you can see that both films share a common vision, self disparagement seems something Fosse saves for the latter film ("Jazz" seemed to have a double-helping of it; now we know where it came from). The film never has Bruce question his own substance abuse problems which wrecked his health and brought him further closer to prison. Neither does the later Bruce - the one closer to the end - even seem to acknowledge those he loved, those he must have known would feel the most pain when he was gone. Fosse seems so resolute to show how weak and non-iconic Lenny Bruce really was that he misses the chance to show how human he could have been.

For starters, I don't necessarily subscribe to the theory that Lenny Bruce was this ultra hip social satirist. Nor did I find him funny back in my college years, ('68-'72). Today I find him less relavant, even somewhat dated. But that's really not important in appreciating Dustin Hoffman's brillant, warts and all portrayal in this marvelous movie.

There's so much to like here that I'm amazed, despite six Oscar nominations Lenny went away empty-handed. I don't remember who won the awards for best direction and best actress in '74, but they would have to go to great lengths to top Perrine's superlative performace and Fosse's masterful direction.

For me, every scene from the cheap strip joints and Borsht-Belt casinos to the small west coast clubs to the woman's penitentiary all ring so true to life. Fosse's insight in recreating these venues is as brillant, perhaps even greater than his oscar winning direction of Caberet. What works so well in both movies is his intuitive knack of finding the right face in the crowd at just the right moment to focus in on. There's a scene in Lenny that takes place in a small dive. He's facing a particularly hostile crowd. The camera pans the audience and we find a midget hopping up onto a bar stool, where he's greeted by his transvestite companion. Both look sullen and bemused. Much the same way Joel Gray was abused by an audience hot to see the real entertainment, Lenny knows he's no match for the ladies headlinning these bucket-of-blood joints.

What really holds Lenny together is the peerless performaces of both Hoffman and Perrine. Hoffman transforms himself from aspiring club MC to foul mouthed clut comic to free speech champion to frustrated jail-house lawyer to strung out junkie, with his usual deft insight and skill. Perrine, whose character must go back and forth from past to present, acts as the primary storyteller. It is in her uncanny performace that we are guided through this train wreck world of Lenny Bruce. She must be his enabler, his confidant, his lover and eventualy his chronicler. She is truly Oscar worthy in her endeavor.

As a director Bob Fosse gave us but three movies, Caberet, Lenny and his own biographical All That Jazz. He certainly left us all too soon. His brillance as a flim director rests on these few nuggets. I for one will savor them and look back endless times at what is perhaps the most underated career in all of cinema. His likeness we will surely never see again.

This is more or less the practical lesson that shows this movie. Truly, the obscene words and actuations of Lenny Bruce as seen in the screen could hardly scandalize nobody today, but well instead there are the mode of the politically correct.
Yes, this comedian had a life a little frivolous, abused of drugs, had big success with women, but they love him: a very rare case few men know how achieve, and at last an entertainer rarely can drive his life as a judge (or yes?).
The final conclusion for me is similar for many biographies of original scientists, artists, writers and in general, genial people or perhaps simply over the media: you can be different, you can even do exceptional discoveries... but that isn't good for your health because it disturbs "normal people".