Most Original

I have always found Neil Simon's earlier works far more satisfying than his middle and later periods. It's understandable that comic writers such as Simon and Woody Allen felt the need to develop, having become tired of churning out pungent one liners. The transition from pure comic, to serious writer, albeit with a comic base, is a tricky one. Both Simon and Allen have on occasion handled this fusion of elements well, but by and large the challenge has not been well met by either.

"Laughter on the 23rd Floor" being a reminiscence of Simon's television writing days on the legendary "Show of Shows" was largely a comic piece when produced on Broadway. Since most of the characters in the play are loosely based on a group of writers famed for their wit, the play should have been a hilarious riot. While it made for an enjoyable evening in the theater, one couldn't help feeling it had somewhat missed the mark.

For the television adaptation Simon has turned "Laughter on the 23rd Floor" into a supposedly deeper and more serious work, in his portrayal of comic Max Prince. Depicting the complexities that make up the psyche of a comic is not an easy task but Simon's depiction of Max Prince does not go far beyond the clichés one would expect. Nathan Lane pulls out all the stops, but at times he seems to be unwittingly doing a Zero Mostel imitation. The biggest let down is that despite a group of fine and seasoned performers and many one liners, even the comic bits are not as funny as they should be.

Those who have a particular fondness for the period of 50's television and the tremendous talents around at the time are likely to be disappointed.

Neil Simon's play "Laughter on the 23rd Floor" centered on the relationship between a 1950s television comic (based on Sid Caesar and his staff of writers, who worked out of the 23rd floor of a midtown building in Manhattan. This group would talk, confide, fight, and go for each others' throats if the situation - however absurd - warranted it. Underneath the zaniness, hostility or any dilemna, however, was a shared love and talent for creating sketch comedy. And it was this talent that bonded writers and comic together and, when all smoke cleared, made them realize that they did in fact care for what they did, and for each other. Max Prince (the Sid Caesar model), and his writers. The writers and Max Prince. He needed them, they needed him. Together they needed comedy. This play was indeed a fine ensemble. Every character is defined. None are short-changed in depth. Would have been a novel approach for the film. Understandably, a film version of a stage script needs some change and adaptation so as to not be a confined, filmed play. When this transition goes so far afield, however, changing the intention and focus of the original piece, there seems to be no point in adapting it to film at all. The film "Laughter on the 23rd Floor" plays like a sequel to an original that was never made (like maybe the play?) The film focuses on Max Prince's relationships with virtually everyone (including his dead parents in a cemetary scene), EXCEPT the writers. Characters who were not even in the play become the main supporting cast, while the writers are left as incidental characters. Considering those who are playing the writers - Victor Garber, Mark Linn-Baker, Saul Rubinek, Dan Castellaneta, among others - a fine pool of talent is genuinely squandered, with nothing to do except occassionally react to and comment on the changing state of The Max Prince show. As a result, when Max makes the heartfelt statement that his writers mean everything to him, the point is lost, because there has been little interaction with them A more fitting title for this film would be "The Travels and Travails of Max Prince". Why this instead of "Laughter on the 23rd Floor"? Because Max hardly spends any TIME on the 23rd floor!

I have not seen the play, or read it. However, having watched Murder by Death, also written by Neil Simon, I know that this was once marvelous. The man has talent, there's no doubt about that. I am not sure how this got so messed up. The ideas are potentially interesting, and the themes could be compelling. Heck, this could, if nothing more, be *funny*. But it's simply not so. Well, the jokes are occasionally great. We're talking one out of five or so, though. Looking at the guy's filmography, I'm thinking a large part of the blame lies with the director. The actors are all excellent, and they do the very best performances they can with what they are given to work with. You can only do so well with a script as apparently bad as this adaptation, and direction as utterly unfocused as this shows. This revolves around a 50's television comedian(maybe if you enjoy those, you'll find this amusing to a greater extent than I did) and his colleagues. There's stuff about censorship, commercialism and pushing oneself too hard, meanwhile, none of it gets enough development to matter or make an impact. The pacing is fine. Editing and cinematography are standard. There is some strong language in this. I recommend this to fans of at least one person involved who feel that they must catch everything that he/she/they are/is in. 5/10

This is really a 3rd rate, made-for-television mess. First of all, there is NO 'Laughter on the 23rd Floor' or any other floor - and for a Neil Simon play that is shameful. Nathan Lane is, Nathan Lane, a short loud mouthed Jackie Gleason sounding caricature of Sid Caesar during Sid's Show of Shows era. It's supposed to be manic and inspired, but it's just loud and pointless. All the reviews here seem to imply that a great cast of fine character actors stood behind Lane and help boost the show along – I don't buy that at all. None of the assorted 'fine character' actors helped anything, all their words and actions are forced to the point of being painful, their lines were very poorly delivered and none of them were believable for even one second – for which I blame director Richard Benjamin. An almost insulting attempt at adding substance to this train wreck is the tossing in of Edward R. Morrow's legendary Joe McCarthy Show underneath and in between the overacting of Lane's lemming running toward the sea character. Then it's all tossed aside for a nice tidy and gutless ending – My mother could write better than this. The one, single redeeming element in this claptrap is the very deftly played character of Lane's brother (Harry Price) played by character actor Richard Portnow. None of the other reviews even mention this guy but his is the ONLY performance worth a plug nickel in the whole show - everybody is running around frantically overacting their asses off to keep up with Lane and this guy steals the whole film out from underneath them with a quiet nod and a sheepish grin. If for some reason you feel compelled to waste your time watching this – Don't take your eyes of off Portnow, he is the ONLY reason to sit through it!

Thanks, mercutio-8 for the information that it was based on a play, that helped me to understand that there might have been something to it once... But now there is almost no plot at all, just a couple of scenes with heavy bantering (sometimes somewhat funny) and some very unstructured criticism of the McCarthy era.

There has to be more to be made out of this concept - comedy under the strain of self-imposed (?) censorship during McCarthyism, rivalry and yet comradeship between writers, the actual process of brainstorming, the early TV-market economy demands from media barons vs. artistic freedom. I think there was an ambition to show these different themes - although the director accomplished none of the above.

No shadow should fall on the actors though - they're all top of the line. But when they get such a lousy script to work with, what can they do?