Genre:
Comedy
Release Date: 11/08/2005
Dubbed: English
Sound: DD2
Run Time: 60 Minutes
Flags: Not For Children, Adult Language
Distributor/Studio: Koch Vision
Those seeking proof of the much-vaunted brilliance of the highly influential nightclub comic
Lenny Bruce will probably be disappointed by
Lenny Bruce: Performance Film. Shot in grainy black-and-white, this film was made at the tail end of
Lenny's career, shortly before his death in 1966. By this time,
Bruce had been unhinged by excessive drug abuse and by his many arrests for obscenity. Instead of striving for laughs, he rambles on bitterly and sometimes incoherently about his run-ins with the law and his outrage over having "his words" taken from him. There's an occasional spark of the
Lenny Bruce of old, and a sporadic chuckle from the benumbed audience, but on balance the film is painful to watch. However, inasmuch as precious little of
Lenny Bruce has survived on film,
Lenny Bruce: Performance Film deserves to be seen at least once. And now for the good news: this film includes the classic animated cartoon
Thank You Masked Man, wherein
Lenny's voice is heard scatologically skewering the mythos of the
Lone Ranger and
Tonto.
~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
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