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Lenny Bruce: Swear To Tell The Truth

Started by Neil, April 09, 2004, 03:46:20 AM

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Neil

Just watched this a couple of nights ago and it's got me fascinated with Lenny Bruce again.  It's an excellent movie-length documentary, narrated by Robert De Niro, with lots of footage.  It covers his rise and eventual decline after he kept getting busted for obscenity.  Although I knew all about the most famous cases, I didn't realise he'd got busted quite so much during his career, it's quite shocking that he was being treated so harshly for simply telling jokes.  The documentary also states that he started getting harassed so much because he was busted for giving a "prominent figure" some hassle one night, and when asked to cough up some cash to make the charges go away, he refused and went public about the blackmail.  From then on he found himself getting busted repeatedly for his "obscene" shows.

It's amazing watching the toll this took on him physically (along with the drugs, of course), as he all but stopped doing comedy, instead taking to reading out court transcripts and the like on stage, and protesting his right to perform his material to the end.

Anyway, found the documentary fascinating and it has really rekindled my interest in the comedy of Lenny Bruce, I'm going to dig out the fantastic Carnegie Hall show and see if I can track done any stuff I've not heard before on Soulseek.

Oh when I googled for info on this documentary I saw that it had been on BBC4 last year so look out for it appearing again.  Even if you don't know much about him or haven't heard his comedy before then you'll still enjoy the movie.  Lots of rare footage including stuff that was never shown on the Steve Allen show, and some interviews with the late Steve Allen himself.

Some interesting links:
His FBI File, although as with the John Lennon one I doubt this is the full thing they have released:
http://www.fadetoblack.com/foi/lennybruce/index.html

JAYB's Lenny Bruce Site, very useful indeed and has some rare audio:
http://www.freenetpages.co.uk/hp/lennybruce/

Not checked this site yet but it looks like it has some interesting bits on it:
http://members.aol.com/dcspohr/lenny/lenny1.htm