In interview after interview and speech after speech, Steve Martin always cites one of his major influences as that of Car Reiner. The four films in fact that Martin and Reiner made together are four of the most peculiar and obtuse comedies of the era and yet everyone of them works in its own private way. Some are even comedically experimental, playing with notions of form and all other sorts of tone. Martin as a solo artist, whether he be performing his own words or others, always achieved something special. However in his pairings with Reiner, that something special became something all the more... Well, special.

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The Jerk (1979)

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Written by Martin, Carl Gotlieb and Michael Elias feels like one of the more ideal star vehicles ever created. Moulded and expanded from bits and jokes from Steve Martin’s own stand-up at the time The Jerk does at times feel like a series of strung-together bits, but it is the way that they are strung together so effectively by the rags to riches to rags to riches story of a simpleton like Navan Johnson that makes The Jerk the brilliant comedy that it is, and of course having that titular jerk be portrayed by one the greatest comedic minds of an era helps a fair amount – chiefly in one department, making him likeable, at times even believable despite the absurdity of the scenes and actions of the character. The most famous of course of these cribbed jokes is that of Martin’s old opener “I was born a poor black child”, a hilarious one-liner joke in-unto-itself, however one might think having that be the plot of a film could lead to some problematic territory. For me personally, I can only say that the characters of Navan’s family, led my his mother played by Mabel King, are a group of knowing and loving characters, pair that with Martin’s naivety and humanity as Navan lead to such exchanges like “you were left on our door-step” “You mean I’m gonna stay this colour!” feel humorous and earnest, rather than awkward or any other number of adjectives to describe racial jokes in this day and age. One last exchange between Navan and his father, with his father pointing out the difference between a pile of sh*t and some Shinola, puts you on the right path for where this film will go comedically and if that one joke made you laugh aloud alone in your room, then you’re on the right path, if that ain’t your bag than The Jerk is not for you and for that matter none of us four films are really. From there our simpleton, our ‘idiot’, our titular jerk goes on a cross country journey through the years and effects lives big and small, finds himself rich, falls in love in a relationship that spans years, and eventually comes home to his family. There’s just no way around it, this movie is Forrest Gump, but a full blown comedy this time and years and years before Gump was conceived. But here there is still the heart and love that Gump claims to have in abundance, in particular one moment shared between Martin and his then girlfriend Bernadette Peters, who appears in the film as Navan’s love interest through the years, as they sing and play his ukulele to the tune of Tonight You Belong to Me. It really is just one of the most touching, innocent and beautifully composed moments in any of these four films. Beyond Peters, there are scene stealing roles aplenty with Art Carney and M.Emmet Walsh as particular standouts, aswell as Reiner himself in a hilarious cameo near the end of the film, however it just can’t be underestimated to what extent this film lives and dies by Martin. His absolute commitment, his physical and vocal comedic mastery leads this simple and effective comedy to be so much more than just a string of sketches, it has a narrative and it is an ingenious comedic character study of a simple man in a complicated world, with some of the great jokes of the era peppered throughout.

Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982)

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Now… this is often commented upon by Martin and Reiner as the favourite of all of their collaborations, Reiner more specifically has said repeatedly that it is the favourite film that he has directed, but for me… Well. It’s certainly a great achievement; this film noir parody is equal parts one of the greatest feats of editing as it is an effective noir homage. The film is built upon not only sequences shot for the film - with Martin as Rigby Reardon, a classic homage to the noir private investigators of the era’s films, along with Rachel Ward as a perfect femme fatale and Reiner himself as a stale German butler who is eventually revealed to be an evil Nazi – but also the film’s chief conceit is the splicing and intercutting of these original scenes with an abundance of archive clips from the time, with Martin interacting with these clips not in a Forrest Gump (mentioned again, curiously) or Billy Crystal opening Oscars bit style with computer effects inserting him in, but instead rather match-cutting, with the costume and production design built and designed to mirror identically. So in effect, alongside Martin and Reiner and Ward, the film technically also stars Humphrey Bogart, Alan Ladd, Burt Lancaster, Ray Milland, Barbara Stanwyck, Ava Gardner, Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Bette Davis, Lana Turner, Kirk Douglas… to name but a few. As a piece of editing and writing it’s indeed an incredible feat, however I personally can’t help but feel a slight missing of the mark here. Now this really is the best possible version of this sort of project, I really have no doubt. Overall however it just feels like whenever we are in completely original scenes with Martin and Ward, we are back to top spoof and homage material in Reiner and Martin’s great hands, however when the intercutting starts, jokes become few and far between and as humorous as the convolution of the plotting is, it never reaches the heights on a comedic level that the original scenes in this film do. Comedically this is the least funny of the four films, experimentally and on a pure craft level one has to give the credit where it is certainly due. The film has original costumes and was the last film worked on by the legendary costume designer Edith Head, and the film is “affectionately” dedicated “to her and the brilliant technical and creative people who worked on the films of the 1940’s and 1950’s” as the credits reads. The film certainly is above all else affectionate in its homage and loving in its influences, one just can’t help but feel that above an interesting editing exercise the film would be so much better as a completely original Rigby Reardon spoof film. However, again as a piece of experimental comedy, it’s certainly Reiner and Martin at their most playful with the form. Hell, the film makes its own form that has never been replicated on this scale again, bar perhaps TV and internet sketches, but of course never with this much care, skill and craft.

The Man with Two Brains (1983)

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I know I speak a lot in hyperbole on this show but the first half an hour of The Man with Two Brains is the most I’ve laughed on a first watch at something in a very long time. Now I knew I loved Steve Martin and the Reiner pairings I’d watched thus far got me excited, however there was just something about the zaniness of the title and the wackiness of the few moments I had seen that turned me against this film for a while, there’s something about Martin as a dry comedy figure that is where he sits best for me in my personal comedic zone of preference, so the pitch and what I had seen of Two Brains was not that at all. Lord, oh Lord, was I pleasantly mistaken when this was so completely in my comedic zone for long stretches that I immediately started planning ways for me to show this to anybody who hasn’t seen it yet. This is just my right amount of silliness and zaniness and as aforementioned the first half hour, even hour really, of this film is so tight, efficient and non-stop funny that I really couldn’t have found myself having a better time. Martin stars here in a perfect role for him, with a great balance of his greatest strengths, as a brilliant brain doctor who ends up in a relationship with a femme fatale black widow figure who we first seeing getting rid of George Furth in a great cameo. Somewhere around Martin’s brilliantly nonsensically named doctor there is honestly a gag that it is the best laugh I’ve had in a while, consisting of Martin delivering incredibly descriptive instructions to a little girl. It may very well be up there now in my ranks of favourite jokes on film, if I were to make such a list. Starring as the femme fatale, in a sort of proto-Joan Cussack-Debbie Jelinksy role is Kathleen Turner, absolutely brilliantly aping her role in Body Heat with barley any years in-between. To go from one iconic dramatic role, almost immediately into a spoof of that role, and be absolutely sensational in both, is a true feat that only an actress of Turner’s calibre could pull off. For as much as Martin is the core of the film and Reiner’s comedic stability as a director is the foundation, Turner is the adrenaline that takes this film to a whole new level in the four film cannon of these great comedians. The amount of praise I’ve put on the first hour of this film may lead one to believe that the second half and final act are a little lacklustre, and they most certainly are not by any means, the pace remains at a great clip and the gags keep coming thick, fast and consistent in calibre, however for me as the zaniness is ratcheted up, some of my personal comedic interest just waned a touch. However this peaked to highs all of a sudden again when it came to certain running gags such as that of the elevator killer, aswell as other Turner sequences. Overall if I were to give a ranking of recommendations of these four films, then undoubtedly, The Man with Two Brains would top that list.

All of Me (1984)

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The final script of Phil Alden Robinson before he went on to become a director in his own right, writing and directing films like Field of Dreams, All of Me has a similar dream logic world and premise but just chooses to tell it of course in the comedic style of all of Reiner and Martin’s films. The fingerprints of Reiner and Martin are all there, but does feel more so than the other three films like a pair of excellent craftsman bringing just a plain great script to the screen, without adding too much, mainly in Reiner’s case, of their signature flare as to get away from the dynamite writing and the integral pair of lead performances. These two leads being that of Steve Martin as a down on his luck lawyer and Lily Tomlin as a dying millionaire who has taken it upon herself to organise through Ricard Libertini’s ‘foreign mystic (I’m sure you can imagine how nuanced a portrayal that is) to have spirit placed inside the body of the young and beautiful (and in real life future Mrs Steve Martin, they met and married within the year of making this film) Victoria Tennant. What follows is one of the many body swapping comedies of the era and one of the best for my opinion, for a body-swap film is only as good of course as the bodies you’re swapping and also in this case how the swap maximises on the strongest talents of the two performers, for instance Lily Tomlin (for as much as she is of course an incredibly gifted physical comedian, as we see plenty of in the first half of the film, particularly in her wheelchair antics) is perfect here as the voice of the body, delivering many of the dry and perfect cutting remarks that scupper everybody’s’ plans, and of course Martin (for as much as he too is of course the master of the dry line delivery, which we still get plenty of), extremely excels in his physical comedy and here in those moments when Tomlin takes over from inside we get an array of great slap-stick comedy sequences. But this too is a great ensemble comedy, beyond the sublime Tomlin and Martin, with Tenant giving a great go as the seductive villain of the piece, Libertini being funny for what it’s unfortunately worth and Jason Bernard perhaps even stealing the show as Martin’s blind musician friend – where all the jokes are wonderfully never at the expense of Bernard and are often in-fact made by himself. The jokes come quick and fast and offer an array of styles and fashions, from slap-stick, to witty zingers, even to absurdist moments when it comes to the mysticism of the plot, along with some elements of the conclusion (specifically how certain characters end up in the end). The film even boats Car Reiner giving us a great fake orgasm joke, years before his son Rob would perfect the formula with When Harry Met Sally, however here Martin have a better zinger response; “Yeah, well I... I faked mine too!” Overall All of Me is in a way a bit of a slight comedy, not really in the grand experimental style of constant gaggery of the other three films discussed here, however it still really is a great film and yet another marvellous collaboration of talents. And not unlike The Jerk, the film also ends with a dance sequence of complete joy underneath the credits – a beautiful bookends of sorts to this pair’s four films together.

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To me it is just so clear to what extent this friendship and collaborative partnership was just that, a partnership, a collaboration. Martin and Reiner’s painfully specific comedic energies work so well together that it defies influence and frankly defies comparison. Martin and Reiner made four of the bizarrest comedies of the era and relished every moment of it.

-        -Thomas Carruthers