SaraAutumn

The plot is thin but the casting is stuffed with major faces from the heydey of Vaudeville. For most of these performers, uncredited as they were, this is the only recording of parts of their act. Enjoy the silliness and pretend you're at Minsky's.

I'm talking about the DVD. If you select Original U.S. release option, that's a bold face lie. I remember the original and that isn't it. The biggest complaint of people who see William Cameron Menzie's masterpiece is of the repeat scenes and stock footage. That cr*p was not there in 1953. I recently saw IFM on TCM and thought, "Did I forget what schlock there was in this movie?" But then the savvy host wised me up. The copyright went up for sale and the new owner thought the movie too esoteric and needed more tanks. So stock footage was dropped in of loading tanks (to the tune of "Caissons" no less) and tanks running to the rescue. During the repeated scenes and the stock footage even the music is different. William Cameron Menzie's stark design and tight storytelling has remained with me as a designer and writer all these years. The new owner of the film should be shot for reediting a sci fi classic and destroying it. The only way to enjoy this movie the way it was in '53 is to buy the DVD, copy it on VHS deleting the tank scenes, and then return the DVD.

Performing brilliantly is walking a razor's edge. One step to the right it's comedic, or to the left and it's tragic. Peter Chelsem's Funny Bones pits comedy against tragedy, forming that razor's edge for the astounding assembled cast to walk. It has its standard plot, Tommy Fawkes (Oliver Platt) isn't funny, despite having a famously funny father (Jerry Lewis). He runs away to Blackpool where he lived until he was six and remembered that the sun shone everyday. There, he finds the secrets of his past. There ends the plot. Chelsem then weaves incredible magic through and around the plot with the secretive and brilliant Jack (Lee Evans) who gave up living his life to save his life; his aged uncles, The Parker Brothers (George Carl and Freddie Davies), brilliant vaudevillians in their time; and his mother Katie Parker (Leslie Caron) who links the three to reality. They have their rituals such as applauding for themselves when putting on powder. Add to these characters an ancient oriental powder for immortality. All elements twine together when all five performers (include Tommy Fawkes) give a performance of a life time.