April 20, 2024
1581.) One of the films that I waited several decades to see, Il Pap’occhio (read: Eye of the Pope) is an episodic farce that recounts the efforts of a TV host-producer, played by real-life TV host- producer Renzo Arbore, to find people to appear on a new “Vatican state television” network. Along the way we see a variety of ridiculous acts and several guest stars — only one of whom, Mariangela Melato, will be known to U.S. cinephiles. While Arbore’s character keeps auditioning oddball talent for the new network (including a very special choir), we also witness efforts to teach the Pope proper Italian (this was during the time of John Paul II, who evidently retained his Polish accent while speaking the Mother Tongue) and different sequences involving Arbore’s two world-famous discoveries (who flourished while on his Sunday night TV show), Isabella Rossellini and Roberto Benigni. The former makes a joke relating to her mama, while the latter does a few comic bits that were clearly improvised on the spot (including one where he’s repainting a part of the Sistine Chapel ceiling). Also showing up in this collection of bits and pieces is Isabella’s then-husband, who is seen in a cameo appearance “directing” the first night of the new network — the bearded (the sign of quality!) Martin Scorsese.
Last week:
1580.) I’ve presented a lot of “Things You Ain’t Seein’ Anyplace Else,” but this week’s offering is indeed extra-special. It represents for me the happier side of man who is often depicted as an acerbic, gloomy, doomed soul – Lenny Bruce. Lenny is used as a legal reference these days more than he is discussed as a comedian and an entertainer. In the latter capacity, during a period when he was commercially controversial (different from his later unemployed controversial), he got an offer from the NYC station WNTA to make a special for their series “One Night Stand.” So, one night in April 1959 Lenny had a 90-minute special, “The World of Lenny Bruce,” air opposite Paar’s “Tonight Show” on WNTA (a commercial station, later to become WNET and part of PBS) featuring whatever guests he could gather (and afford), his own standup, and most jarring and welcome of all, home-movie footage of the places he loved in Manhattan. I’m hoping to make two episodes out of the copy I was able to obtain of this special; for this first episode, I delay showing his standup (since that was used in Fred Baker’s Lennny Bruce Without Tears) and instead focus on him introducing three acts and talking directly (and, at one point, singing!) to the viewer. The musical acts he booked were, unsurprisingly, all jazz performers. But there was one gentleman that Lenny was thrilled to showcase (throughout the segment he’s grinning broadly and brimming with enthusiasm): a man he saw as a kid at Hubert’s Museum, Professor Roy Heckler, a master of the once-frequent sideshow attraction, the flea circus.