Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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Mar tit By David Baker Gamecock FHm Critic On December 14, Universal pictures will release Carl Reiner's The Jerk, the lone-waited comedv in which Steve Martin makes his starring debut. In conjuction with the picture's opening. Universal invited several members of the local press to Atlanta to talk with Reiner and Martin about their soon-to-be-released project. urtiwututft: now aici you develop the idea behind The Jerk? MARTIN: The initial idea was my own. I always had an interest in the person who invented this snap on your pants. I heard that he made $80 million from this snap. That's what The Jerk is based on. The first draft of the script was written by me and Carl Gottlieb, who co-wrote Jaws. REINER: The spont interesting way: b shortage, Steve an< wagon to the locati over the day's work t together. So we ma way to work. REINER: Carl Gottlieb and I. MARTIN: No. Written by me. And the second draft was written by Michael Elias and me, and the third draft was written by Carl Reiner and I. GAMECOCK: How much of the finished picture was ad-libbed? REINER: Not too much. The spontaneity happened in an interesting way; because of the gas shortage, Steve and I shared a station wagon to the locations. We would look over the day's work together and talk it out together. So we made new jokes on the way to work. Once we got there,they were in the script. Every day, one or two new jokes would happen, but the script was very well written and designed before we ever went into production. MARTIN: Obviously, you do adlib. The lick was an ad-lib. REINER: Yes, the kiss-lick. It was interesting. Steve was supposed to kiss Bernadette on the Producer msammmam i, Reine nose and I told him just lick her this time. We didn't tell Bernadette UIIV4 V11U t 1 VOV11UII VI IIUIO to WVI ill everything. She was so shocked, but professional that she is, she continued to act and then broke up completely after the shot. GAMECOCK: Why does bathroom humor - humor that deals with sex and bodily functions -- make up so much of The Jerk's comic thrust? REINER: We didn't talk about those things at home and we need a place to let it out. It is a very integral part of everybody's life and when you're looking for common denominations with an audience, you eat, you sleep and you screw -Are we allowed to say "screw?" Yes? Are we allowed to say -?" No? Screw. We do all of those things and oeonle are most in aniety happened in an ecause of the gas i I shared a station ons. We would look ogether and talk it out de new iokes nn the terested in the things they understand. We are all victims of that UnH i\f nlnncnrn o?ul 1 Kir^Lr it c/\^r\n nuiu V7i pivuoui t uitvi i imiirv u into all of our creative work. In every novel, you handle all the subjects of life and, because those are the most repressed subjects, they generate the biggest laughs. We didn't make those rules, but ^ that's how it is. GAMECOCK: Aren't you afraid tnai The Jerk s "K rating will keep out a substantial number of Steve's fans? IlEINEIt: Somebody else decided to call it an "R." We asked why and they said that there were a couple of words in it that children shouldn't know. We're not going to keep anybody out -- when kids want to get in a movie, they get in. We're not censoring ourselves. Somebody is censoring us. I personally don't mind if the whole world sees this movie. I don't think any words will ever hurt you. The movie is loaded with real fun, we think, so we don't ?*!J|j|j|| "Jj' Carl Reiner *r hnnn think the "R" rating is going to hurt us. GAMECOCK: Was The Jerk intended for American audiences only, or did you aim for the world market? REINER: When you do anything, you do it first for yourself and then you hope others 11 . u if *M.. i/x win eujuy 11, ilhj. ii yuu uy please everyone, you're going to make a very ungapatched movie. MARTIN: What? REINER: Ungapatched. It's a French word meaning "patched together." GAMECOCK: Steve, why does ^yuui llldl UUUC DLCIIC IUVU1VC puppies? MARTIN: I always do that thing with the puppies at home, so it didn't seem out of place for me. REINER: And you're saying puppies...this was only a large dog and one puppy. MARTIN: It wasn't a puppy. It tunc nn nIH small r\na REINER: It was an old small dog. These were two adult dogs. Two adult dogs and they knew what they were doing These were two consenting dogs! GAMECOCK: Are you satisfied with the wav the Dicture has turned out? MARTIN: Carl said it best: We've got a beautiful child with a wart. There'll always be flaws that people, especially those involved with the picture for two years, will see. Hopefully, an audience that's looking for entertainment will not : *: 1 ut* as ui uicai as we are. GAMECOCK: What part of the film do you consider the wart? KEINEK: We're not going to tell you, because what we think of as the wart, you may think of as the nipple on a breast -- a beautiful wart. GAMECOCK: Are you planning to make more films together in the future? MAHTIN: We've been talking about another script very casually. REINER: Let's put it this way: Mr. Martin intends to make more films with me, but I don't. Let's get it oul now, Steve. If The Jerk works, oh yes, we'll make more pictures, but if we're a failure, I'm not working with you twice. MARTIN: They asked for a Jerk novel, but I thought that was stretching it quite a ways, so we compromised and made a Jerk lmunuvci, wim;u is pictures irom the movie with captions from the movie. That's a little less pretentious than doing a novel. I've always avoided outrageous merchandising. I've done T-shirts and the only reason I did them was because everyone else was doing them. I was going on concert tours and there'd be bootleg T-shirts out there. I figured that we should control what the T-shirts looked 1:1.^ a? r? ? 1 i:-i?. ? unc. /\a itu us met ciictuuisillg uil The Jerk goes, we've agreed to limit it to very basic things, like Jerk faucets that you wear on your head, and Jerk brassieres. GAMECOCK: When you first started working together, did you find you had two different approaches to comedy? MARTIN: Carl is a funny person and I don't think funny people have a generation gap. We didn't at all. We had instant rapport. GAMECOCK: Do you believe that American comedy is headed in the same direction? MARTIN: The direction of A 1-. 11 1 1 - rtiiicricctn comeuy is in uie nanus of whoever comes up with it. There's no pattern that it should follow. It depends on the individual who's wringing comedy out of the head. But I do think there is a place now for political commentary. in comedy. I think we've had a reprieve for the last five years because there was so much of it before. There'll always be a place for it and I think that might be the t <a ? ? 'y uuiui Bfa^ siMPT r''' '' :"-S-. r ri~ :>V r -'i'^rZ- I'"_:"c- Lr * >. / ii-r ML?ih^ Comedian S next major move. If I were n smarter, I'd do it. KKINER: You have to look at f< the times. Whatever is happening r< in societv will be reflected bv the comedians. If we are in a p repressive society, we'll have a g certain kind of comedy. If we're in k a depression, we'll have a certain b kind of comedy. When the reality a situation is really, really bad,then g comedy is king. We need our I jesters to say*"Hey, it's all right. I' We're gonna make it!" In the middle of war, in the middle of v\ civil strife, comedians become the commentators who point to the a emperor wearing no clothes, to the s fact that people are starving. I n hope that now that Iran is in the s news -- and we're on the verge of something very terrible ? t still write and star in movies. So movies will necessarily cut down fc MARTIN: The initial i always had an interest invented this snan on what 'The Jerk' is base comedians will be able to point a way to look at this before they start g throwing bombs. p GAMECOCK: Steve, do you feel ' y limited by your wild and crazy image? v MAKTIN: I don't feel limited, v mUnt'/. i: ? :i?t: ? n? n- * ? - nicti a uic liuiiuiiiuii uiai s (iui uu I me. All that's needed is for me to e do something to break that image. fc GAMECOCK: Does that mean s you plan to take some dramatic u roles? v MARTIN: Down the line, when I I can no longer go out and go like t this (flails arms around his head), e when I'm 50 or 60, yeah. Right now, n I'm not out to become a dramatic f actor. I'm out to make comedies not necessarily zany ones. S GAMECOCK: Do you worry f about longevity, or about the fact that most comedians' careers are s very short? v MARTIN: I'm aware of that and i I think movies are the answer. A s career in movies can be very long, v while careers in television are r notoriously brief. f GAMECOCK: Do you plan to go s back to stand-up comedy? \ MARTIN: The time it takes to do t it is very consuming, and it's !difficult to go out on the road and 'Jerk' jSpl* teve Martin ly touring time a lot. GAMECOCK: What are your ?elings about Cruel Shoes and the eviews it has recieved? MARTIN: Cruel Shoes is a vi auucti wui iv uiii-t iiui vvviytmv ir> oing to understand it or like it. I new that going in. I knew it would e criticized, and I feel that there re elements in it that are very ood and others that are very silly, t wasn't intended to be all funny, t was intended to be very limited. GAMECOCK: Do you plan to /rite more books? MARTIN: Yes, I'll be writing nother book. Ive started on some tories and they're longer and nore complex than the other tories. REINER: They're a lot better, r>o. MARTIN: Yeah, they're a lot etter, too. idea was my own. I t in the person who your pants. That's d on. GAMECOCK: You've written n :reat deal of material for other >eople. Is it harder to write for ourself or for others? MARTIN: The difference is, in writing stand-up, it's easier to /rite for myself. In writing elevision material, it was always asier to write for someone else tecause you'll give them omething you wouldn't do. Standtp is the hardest material in the yorld to write for someone else, t's almost impossible. You're rying to condense 10 years of xperience into 20 minutes of new naterial and it's extremely dificult. GAMECOCK: Why was The ;mothers Brothers Show so dificult for you to work on? MARTIN: My work on The >mothers Brothers Show was a 'ery important, formative episode n my me, dui we were in a contant battle with censorship. We vere fighting it all the time, but nainly political censorship would ?et us upset. When we wanted to ;ay "blowjob," we didn't mind vhen they took it out, but when hey got to political things, it really sm interview, page 0