How many buttons does this movie push? The cult of personality. Stalking. Delusional disorder. Prisoner of fame. Local boy makes good. If Travis Bickle had stand-up aspirations. Today in 2023, even though Todd Phillips has already ‘fessed up to it, it’s hard not to notice the resemblance in Todd Phillips’ Joker (2019), especially with De Niro standing in for Jerry Lewis and…himself as the neurotic Bickle Pupkin. Was Scorsese just decades ahead of his time, like with New York, New York? Yes and no.

Although Scorsese himself admits an inspiration from Porter’s Life of an American Fireman (1903)^[1], in my research neither our director nor any film critics mention the resemblance to Steno’s post WWII comedy Un americano a Roma (1954) starring Italian national treasure Alberto Sordi (RIP). Like Scorsese’s Pupkin, Steno’s Nando Mericoni also has an unrealistic obsession: to be American. Just as delusional as Pupkin, Nando’s particular obsession with all things American brings him to the point of speaking English-sounding gibberish: his actual command of the language is almost nonexistent so he babbles to his friends and family in what sounds like American to their ears. He does so at any opportuniy, even when detained in a German prisoner camp during wartime!

Comedian Jerry Lewis plays comedian and Johnny Carson-like late night talk show host Jerry Langford: the duality (irony?) here is that when Langford is off stage Lewis’ performance is delivered as serious as the proverbial heart attack. He is a man cornered, seething with a rage, and Lewis shows his dramatic skills brilliantly. Sandra Bernhardt Bernhard as crazed heiress and Langford’s other stalker shines hilariously during her scene with her masking-taped hostage. Robert De Niro is just like other NYC natives The Ramones: even when The Ramones covered Louis Armstrong’s What A Wonderful World, it was still inescapably The Ramones. This is a role like not quite like other in his repertoire and De Niro tries—and mostly succeeds—as obsessed nebbish Pupkin. But it’s still De Niro, a tough and menacing presence and that’s hard to reconcile with the Pupkin character.

It’s got laughs. Cringey laughs. As is, you’ll find yourself laughing at the most uncomfortable things in this film. It could have had more laughs if Scorsese had decided to play it as a straight-up comedy. This is most likely why The King of Comedy flopped at the box office. The tide had turned: the era of The Blockbuster was in full swing and people wanted easier entertainment than the New Hollywood was giving them. Friedkin had spent (and lost) millions with his epic Sorcerer (for another post), Cimino was about to bankrupt United Artists with Heaven’s Gate and the New Hollywood was in the process of being shown the door. If Scorsese had gone more Taxi Driver on the treatment and played it straight-up drama, then The King of Comedy might have won Best Picture at the 1983 Academy Awards instead of Joker at the 2020 Oscars®…?

As for the open ending…I’ve made my own conclusion. You?

Bonus link: Porter’s The Life of an American Fireman. See if you can find the inspiration.

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1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King_of_Comedy_(film)#cite_note-15 ↩︎