Television writer Murray Burns (Jason Robards) is a freethinking, nonconformist who hasn’t worked in months and, truth be told, doesn’t want to work.  However, when a pair of social workers (Barbara Harris, William Daniels) show up at his apartment, threatening to remove his 12-year-old nephew (Barry Gordon) from his care, Murray comes to realize that he’s going to have to find a job…even if it means going back to work for his former employer who he despises, Leo Herman (Gene Saks), better known as “Chuckles the Chipmunk,” star of a television show for kids.

CRITIQUE

Herb Gardner’s A Thousand Clowns is one of the great American stage comedies.  Like The Man Who Came to Dinner, Arsenic and Old Lace and The Odd Couple, it will never grow old and will be revived time and time again.

This 1965 film version of the play utilized 2/3 of the original Broadway cast and was nominated for several Academy Awards, including Best Picture.  Martin Balsam won the Best Supporting Actor statuette for his fine performance as Arnold Burns, Murray’s low-key, pragmatic brother.

As much as I enjoy this movie, I do have a problem with it. After reading a memoir by associate producer/film editor Ralph Rosenblum, I believe that the primary cause of the problem is, surprisingly, playwright/screenwriter Herb Gardner and not director Fred Coe, who also directed the stage production.

A Thousand Clowns, as I recall, is essentially a single set play, and when single set plays are adapted to film, the tendency is to “open them up”.  Sometimes that works, and other times it doesn’t.

According to Rosenblum, it was Gardner who pushed to turn his stage play into a “movie,” and he was apparently influenced by the incongruous European editing techniques that were in vogue during the mid-1960s.

Instead of staying in the single set, Gardner with Rosenblum’s help, moves several scenes out into the streets and onto the landmarks of New York, which are beautifully filmed in glorious black-and-white.  Unfortunately, this effort to make a “movie” is overdone, and we get too much of Jason Robards walking or bicycling around the town either alone, or with Barbara Harris or Barry Gordon.  In many instances, this editing technique breaks up the rhythm of the play.

Gardner should have trusted the strength of his play more than he did.  The actors are superb, the dialogue is masterful and the picture is at its very best when it is allowed to stay on that small apartment set and work its inherent magic.

THE VIDEO

As part of MGM’s “Limited Edition Collection,” this is a “burned,” as opposed to a “pressed” DVD, and is manufactured from the best elements available.

The widescreen picture has no significant problems.

THE AUDIO

The Dolby Digital Sound is crisp and clear.

THE EXTRAS

The sole extra is a Theatrical Trailer.

FINAL THOUGHT