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I had an unwanted mental flashback, just the other day, of this one:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0164066/
JOYS. A Bob Hope TV special, with all that implies, it cast Hope and several dozen
other comedians as guests of a mysterious house party that has become prey to a serial
killer knocking off comedians. You were supposed to think of it as a JAWS parody, and
its tone-deaf nature can best be measured by the shock-realization that the title was their
idea of a pun. JAWS =/= JOYS. Oh, I get it. That's, um, hilarious.
A sheer glance at the guest list would lead you to expect more, but the truth (admitted at
the time) is that the thing was written on the fly, with the story being made up as they
went along and the various actors cut into the proceedings as they dropped into the studio
(leading to, as I noted at the time, the phenomenon of the busy Pat Buttram appearing as
one of the last few survivors, just in time to cry out "No!" and vanish, when he has never
been seen before up until that point.) Wayne Newton has a totally gratuitous and jarring
musical number.
In case you're wondering, the killer is finally unmasked as Johnny Carson, who gloats
that now he can host his show every night. Like that was a goal he really wanted.
None of this is even remotely funny, with all the yok lines forced in the manner of all
Bob Hope TV shows (he was much funnier in his early movies with Crosby).
But the thing that truly horrified me at the time, and which if I got a chance to see this
again would probably be even worse than I remember, was the final appearance of
Groucho Marx, palpably old and depressed and not wanting to be there.
It was worse than you could possibly imagine. The story keeps cutting to him, in the
same chair where you last saw him, immobile, muttering one line or another that had
been written for him, ALL of them having to do with being old and impotent and senile
and expecting imminent death. There is no indication that he understands anything he's
been told to say. The show provides the diminutive Billy Barty, in full Groucho Marx
makeup, running around him shouting gags with the energy the real thing cannot provide,
and allows the real Julius the opportunity to ask, sadly, "Am I having fun yet?"
I was sixteen years old and had not yet discovered the Marx Brothers. I'd heard of them,
but had not been exposed to their genius, only to Groucho's amusing but somewhat less-
impressive turns on YOU BET YOUR LIFE, which was being played on late-night
syndication. So Groucho was not an icon to me. But I knew this was wrong. You could
not have eyes and fail to realize that this was wrong. The camera captures...a dying, soul-
sick old man, who can be prodded to speak a few scripted words but has no capacity to
turn them into comedic music.
Many years later I found out that Groucho, whose health had gone way downhill in the
last six years or so, after a lifetime of vigor, was being "cared for" by a wannabe actress,
Erin Fleming, who would not permit him to stay at home in his dotage and kept pushing
him into further public appearances, well past the point where an actual Groucho
performance was possible, in the hopes that she would be discovered and given roles
herself. She did this for AT LEAST the last four years of his life. (He was still compos
mentos as late as 1974, but not the man he'd been.)
Erin Fleming's fingerprints are all over this JOYS appearance, as they were on an aborted
WELCOME BACK KOTTER cameo that never came off because Groucho was barely
coherent.
(Mark Evanier, who was there, has the story:
http://www.povonline.com/cols/COL239.htm
It’s a truly harrowing account, worth reading. It takes place only a few short months after
Groucho's final screen appearance in JOYS. Groucho himself had less than a year to live
when it occurred.)
The courts later stripped Erin Fleming of the fortune Groucho left her in his will, and she
died young under degraded circumstances (suicide after a life that included several years
spent as a bag lady). Certainly, there was no happy ending to her story either, not that she
particularly deserved one.
In any event, she no doubt pushed him into JOYS. We can blame her for making him do
it. But what about the other comedians there? Hope? Don Rickles? The others? What the
hell were they thinking? Did any of them think they were being kind, in overlooking the
condition of this one-time great? Or did any of them look at the wreckage of a genius and
think, "I want to still be performing when I'm like THAT?"
30 November 2007
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