AN AFFECTIONATE LOOK AT WAYNE & SHUSTER, WAYNE & SHUSTER IN BLACK AND WHITE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Retrospective Programming a Hallmark of the Toronto Jewish Film Festival (TJFF 2016) Two television specials focusing on the legendary Jewish-Canadian comedy team, behind and in front of the cameras.

Canuck comedy duo Wayne & Shuster were profiled
on this CBC-TV light news and public affairs program
entitled TELESCOPE. Pictured here are screen grabs from
one of the most insane opening title sequences of all time. I accept the astronaut, the illuminated lights coming from the skyscraper, the kid, the babe and the eyeball. But seriously, a golf ball that turns into the surface of the Moon? And I ask you, what's with the giraffe and creepy clown?

An Affectionate Look at Wayne & Shuster (1965)
Dir. Norman Campbell
Starring Johnny Wayne, Frank Shuster, Fletcher Markle

Wayne & Shuster in Black and White (1997)
Dir. Trevor Evans
Starring: Johnny Wayne, Frank Shuster

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Johnny Wayne and Frank Shuster were Canada's premier comedy duo. In fact, they were probably the only comedy team from the Great White North beloved on both sides of the Canadian and American border and across the Atlantic in the United Kingdom.

They met in high school and discovered they had an immediate rapport. Throughout both secondary and post-secondary studies, the lads performed in stand-up and sketches. They were eventually hired in the 1940s by Toronto's CFRB to present a comedic household hints show and soon after were given their own radio show on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).

They enrolled in the armed services and throughout both World War II and the Korean War, they performed for the troops fighting abroad. With the advent of television, their careers jettisoned into the stratosphere with a regular series on CBC, followed by regular comedy specials on the same network. They were hired for a series of BBC comedy specials and even starred in an American summer replacement series produced by Jack Benny.

Their biggest success was appearing on the legendary Ed Sullivan show. Ed loved them so much, they broke the show's record of any comedy duo appearing more than once. Wayne & Shuster appeared on Sullivan's ratings hit an astonishing 60+ times. To this day, such multiple appearances by any comedy act on American TV, has never been beaten.

In spite of many offers dangled before them, they refused to make the permanent move to America. They loved Canada and preferred to live in Canada. This didn't really affect their careers in any negative fashion, but given their popularity, Wayne & Shuster could have joined the ranks of all the legendary 60s comedy variety shows on the U.S. networks.

It was not to be. They were Canadian, through and through.

* * * * *

One of the psychotically prolific programs Wayne & Shuster produced and starred in was called "An Affectionate Look at . . ." wherein the lads would sit back, relax and introduce the audience to some of their favourite comedians. Here they're about to launch into an appreciation of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby until they're freeze-framed, stopped and chided by obnoxious host Trevor Markle who tells them it's high time somebody created An Affectionate Look at Wayne & Shuster. What follows is all under the aegis of the extremely light 1965 CBC-TV public affairs program Telescope.

The value inherent in this program is clearly nostalgic. In addition to a lot of very cool period locations in both Toronto and London, it delivers plenty of interviews with supporters and fans and eventually with Wayne & Shuster.

Most of the show is devoted to "documentary" footage as they prepare to celebrate 25 years in show business. They're doing a comedy special on this theme in England with the BBC. So far so good until we're treated to a seemingly endless stroll through Toronto's airport with Wayne, Shuster and their entire families in tow (including a family pet wiener dog) to see them off. The boys kibitz around with their family, ticket girls, stewardesses and finally settle into their seats in the transatlantic jet.

Once they get to dear old Blighty, there's some shenanigans involving a breakneck car ride through London, scenes wherein they plan their special and eventually, in one of the more genuinely funny bits, they collect their BBC producer and go in search of a steakhouse that all three dined at over two decades earlier. When they get to the proper location, our boys are genuinely shocked that their favourite steak joint has been shuttered and turned into the local bookie's office.

Back home they prep and perform in a major touring show that premieres on Prince Edward Island and continues across Canada. Trevor Markle informs us that the fellas are on their way to Winnipeg. The show ends with Wayne & Shuster costumed as voyageurs, travelling from Toronto to Winnipeg by kayak.

If you're a Wayne and Shuster fan, you'll bust a gut. If not, you'll still enjoy the nostalgia of it all. It also looks grand because it was shot at a time when such programs were captured on black and white film. It sure beats the crap out of videotape and even digital.

The Wayne & Shuster Glory Days

Wayne & Shuster in Black and White is a three-part special from 1997 hosted by Frank Shuster (Johnny Wayne died of brain cancer in 1990). The emphasis is upon sketches from the 50s and 60s, which are not without amusement value (more so for fans) and perfectly representative of the literate, laid back Canadian humour the duo specialized in. The sketches include classic spoofs of movies like Ben-Hur, Shakespeare plays and old westerns.

As a kid in the 60s, I pretty much thought Wayne and Shuster were the dullest, most unhip comedians on TV. That said, I watched all their programs anyway and got a special thrill whenever I saw them on the decidedly uncool Ed Sullivan Show.

It's decades later now, though, and no matter what I thought as a kid, I have to admit to getting weepy and nostalgic over both of these programs. And yes, I laughed a lot. That's ultimately what any comedian wants.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *** Three Stars

An Affectionate Look at Wayne & Shuster and Wayne & Shuster in Black and White are part of the stellar archival lineup that the Toronto Jewish Film Festival (TJFF 2016) excels at like no other film festival in Canada.

TEN FROM YOUR SHOW OF SHOWS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - TJFF 2014 - Toronto Jewish Film Festival 2014

Ten From Your Show of Shows (1973) *****
Dir. Max Liebman, Prod. Pat Weaver, Writers: Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, Carl Reiner
Starring: Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca, Carl Reiner, Howard Morris

Review By Greg Klymkiw

To coin a phrase from the title of Alan Zweig's recent documentary masterpiece, be prepared to experience - beyond all your wildest hopes and dreams - a time when Jews were funny. I mean funny!!! Really, really funny.

If there is anything on television today that's even a pubic hair as brilliant as Your Show of Shows, I'd like to know what it is. Watching this 1973 feature length compilation of ten classic sketches from the immortal variety series that aired on NBC from 1950-1954, I was delightfully transported to a time and place when comedians could have you in stitches just by appearing on-screen - completely in character and bearing the gait and posture that offered a mere taste of the hilarity to come. Each sketch is a perfectly crafted gem with a solid narrative coat hanger by which to display gags of the highest order and performed with the kind of chemistry and zeal that seems so lacking in contemporary comedy. These were giants, kings and gods of the universe of laughter.

Astonishingly, the show was performed in a real theatre, with a real audience and broadcast LIVE to the world and even more amazing is that the company of actors NEVER ad-libbed - they stuck completely to the brilliant scripts and meticulous choreography of both the basic blocking and the kind of slapstick that modern comedians can only dream of being able to pull off.

Much of this is attributable to the direction of Max Liebman, a pioneer of live television comedy who knew that the very best way to capture the material was to use the camera like a closeup proscenium and most of all, to place a great deal of emphasis on rehearsal to nail every dramatic and comic beat with perfection and to ensure that the performers hit their marks perfectly - after all, when the show is going out live to millions, there are NO second chances. Liebman is, in some ways, the real unsung genius of contemporary screen comedy. He not only directed the precursor to "Your Show of Shows" (a ninety-minute two part live broadcast with Jack Carter in Chicago and Caesar, Coca and Reiner in New York), but he spent eons producing live comedy and variety reviews in the Poconos where he cut his teeth on sketch comedy that demanded perfection.

Though the cast features an excellent array of many regular performers and guest stars, the quartet who led the Show of Shows charge were Sid Caesar, always taking the skewed leading man role, the leggy plasticine-faced Imogene Coca in the equally skewed leading lady roles, the deadpan, pole-up-the-butt Carl Reiner always an authority figure and last, but not least, the genius that was Howard Morris who could do just about anything (and did).

The collection of sketches provided here is no mixed bag of nuts in terms of quality - each and every one is a scrumptious morsel and these rich comic comestibles are beautifully assembled to provide a perfect arc of laughs from beginning to end, but also offer-up the sort of amazing scope of material that this team of artisans attacked.

I'll describe three sketches to give you a sense of what you're in for.

The first sketch in the compilation is a lovely sampling of a simple two-hander where we learn that wifey Coca has ploughed the family car through the front window of a liquor store. When hubby Caesar gets home from a hard day on Madison Avenue, Coca needs to do everything in her power to keep hubby from driving the car, but to also test the waters as to just how furious he's going to be when he hears the news. At one point, she goes so far as to recount the accident in a third person narrative to see how hubby reacts. Caesar hilariously laughs off the tale of woe, commiserating with the poor schmuck who is, no doubt, smarting over the knowledge that he let his dumb wife actually drive the car.

Uh-oh.

Hilarity ensues even more at this point, though the tale offers up an extremely satisfying and touching conclusion.

The centrepiece sketch is one of the earliest examples of a movie parody, a brilliant spoof of Fred Zinneman's adaptation of James Jones's From Here To Eternity with Carl Reiner hilariously pinning a row of medals into Sid Caesar's flesh, a magnificent USO dance-club scene that offers-up Caesar and Reiner's rivalry over dime-a-dance gal Coca and during the rendition of the famous beach scene, Caesar shows up in a rubber ducky tube around his waist and once he and Coca settle in for some amore, they're repeatedly interrupted by bucket loads of water splashed in their faces. (Oh, and I'm just guessing here, but chances are good that most of this sketch was written by head writer Mel Brooks, cinema's king of movie parodies like Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein.)

The concluding sketch is pure slapstick genius. It's a parody of the Ralph Edwards program "This is Your Life" which gives us a healthy glimpse at the huge theatre and audience assembled for the live broadcast by including a big scene offstage and on the orchestra floor, but also provides a marvellous all-you-can-eat offering of the magnificent Howard Morris and his unbelievably insane ability to render physical comedy. In this case, he's so monkey-like that he gives the overrated Planet of the Apes reboot star Andy Serkis a major run for his money. Morris doesn't need CGI - the guy simply transforms into a variety of simian poses in the unlikeliest of settings.

These then are but three of ten great sketches and I can't think of a single one that doesn't offer up huge laughs. One sketch is presented in silent movie pantomime style, another offers the quartet as clock pieces on a German clock that's just not working, another is a two hander with Caesar and Morris as the most rigid, pole-up-the-butt Germans imaginable, another involving Morris wagging a huge dill pickle in front of a very hungry Sid Caesar's face - the list goes on. Laughs galore.

I remember first seeing this compilation when it played first-run at a movie theatre in Winnipeg. I was maybe 13 or 14 years old and I still remember the great feeling of being in a cinema in the North End seeing this work for the first time, rolling on the floor with laughter and surrounded by mostly older people who seemed to be laughing so loud that in retrospect, (this was long before the advent of "Depends") I now wonder just how many of them were able to control their bladders. My recent helping of Ten From Your Show Of Shows certainly provided my own bladder with challenges, so anyone planning to catch the TJFF screening of this great 90 minutes of pure hilarity would be best advised to, shall we say, come prepared for any expulsions triggered by laughter.

As live television during the Golden Age proved time and time again, anything was possible.

Ten From Your Show Of Shows plays the Toronto Jewish Film Festival (TJFF) 2014. For fix and info visit their website HERE.

Klymkiw watches TV (HBO CANADA) - It's nice when rich people produce films about poverty. Kudos to Maria Shriver for this one. PAYCHECK TO PAYCHECK: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF KATRINA GILBERT - Review By Greg Klymkiw

Paycheck To Paycheck: The Life and Times Of Katrina Gilbert (2014) ***
Dir. Nick Doob, Shari Cookson, Prod. Maria Shriver, Starring: Katrina Gilbert

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I can't help it, but trying to remove the taste of bile in my mouth is near-impossible when super-rich White People manage to weasel their way into arts and culture, based primarily upon their wealth, blue-blood family pedigree, celebrity and all the luxuries afforded to them and then make films about poor people. Such is the case of this latest production by Maria Shriver, daughter of Eunice Kennedy Shriver (hence, JFK's niece) and ex-wife of the nanny-defiling movie-star-body-builder-former-California-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Still, I'm happy enough to assess the 75 minute feature film Paycheck To Paycheck: The Life and Times Of Katrina Gilbert on its own terms since co-director Nick Doob has the distinction of being a real filmmaker and a longtime member of the unimpeachable Pennebaker Hegedus Films team, whilst his directorial partner Cookson, has a prolific c.v. which, includes the popular, though somewhat spurious doc series "Real Sex" (with its audience grabbing emphasis upon soft-hard-core antics and personalities).

Doob and Cookson had a whole year to dip into Shriver's access to O.P.M. (said access also generously applied, in fairness, to her many charitable activities) and follow around a Chattanooga, Tennessee nursing assistant to examine the life of the working poor - most specifically an example of America's most vulnerable and largest targets of poverty, single mothers.

Katrina Gilbert has three children and toils for 9 bucks an hour in an extended care facility. It's back-breaking, flat-footing work, but Gilbert genuinely seems to enjoy the daily human contact she has with the old and infirm. Still, she'd prefer to "better herself" and continue her post-secondary studies in the health care field, but in spite of her meagre salary and needing to support three kids, she is turned down - shockingly and inexplicably - for financial aid to further her education and perhaps get a better paying job.

Welcome to America.

Gilbert also has on-going medical conditions which, could well eventually morph into something life-threatening, yet when she goes to get an overdue check-up, she's hit with a doctor bill for over $300 as opposed to the $120 she was initially quoted. In America, there is no socialized medicine - it's big business in the Land of the Free and most people, including the working poor, have to cough up. (Obama Care doesn't appear to be in full implementation during the shooting, but even if it were, it's such a mess I can't imagine it would really help her.) Even more horrifying is that the list of medications she requires to keep her health on the up-and-up are so ludicrously expensive, she needs to make the decision of what drugs she can afford during a last-minute tabulation at the pharmacy.

Welcome to America.

She has three kids to feed, but since her ex is unemployed and often in arrears with his childcare payments, she not only has to lend him gas money to visit the kids, but her ration of food stamps to actually feed her progeny is shockingly and inexplicably cut-off.

Welcome to America.

The film itself is pretty compelling stuff and as a subject, Gilbert is pleasing, kind-hearted and smart. That being said, the movie presents her story in a what-you-see-is-what-you-get style, but I did find a few editing choices somewhat dubious - perhaps even downright unfair to her struggle.

For example, after discovering she doesn't qualify for educational assistance AND forced to choose what drugs she can actually afford, the filmmakers follow her into a beauty parlour so she can "do a little something" for herself. When she drops a healthy whack of dough for her new hair-do, I began to wonder, uh, lady - you have no money for drugs, yet you're dumping 70 or so smackers on what looks to be a (not-especially) flattering makeover. Given how much we feel for this woman, I felt this artistic choice - no matter how "true" - was simply cruel (intentional or not). Maybe it's the filmmakers' desire to make viewers have a similar response to the salon scene and intentionally plant a seed that grows into guilt for even having such a thought.

Whatever the reason it somehow feels out of place, just as a breakfast scene in the family's squalid home is shot and included wherein we watch the kids scarf down grease-laden plates of bacon and eggs, then guzzle-back bottles of pop. Yeah, we know that nutrition-choices are, for the poor, dictated by their poverty, but by continually including such sequences, one occasionally suspects there's a deeper agenda at play here - even if there isn't.

The choice to do this kind of thing might be true to the filmmakers's adherence to a direct cinema approach, but it's almost to the detriment of the film's forward trajectory since you, as a viewer, almost waste more time thinking about the rather mean-spirited approaches than what really counts. I suspect mean-spiritedness was not the intent and that the adherence to a direct cinema approach was paramount. However, even within that context, these moments stick out like sore thumbs rather than integrating with the whole. Greater attention needed to be paid to the desire to present an unfettered reality that should have addressed these important and clearly dichotomous moments in this woman and her family's life.

For example, the movie occasionally interviews individuals on the sidelines of the activities captured - in one case, a man who works as a clerk in a money-lending firm and in another, a clerk in a tax preparation office. In both instances, these brief side trips address the issues at hand - a woman who can't get credit anywhere else other than a usurious money lending service is acknowledged and treated like a human being who knows how hard she's trying to manage her debt and another who seems to even sense the absurdity of poor people needing to pay for a third party to report an income that, for all intents and purposes, is at the poverty line.

Where then is an individual to advocate for the "poor" or even simply acknowledge how easy it is to choose ephemeral pleasure over medical well-being and how prevalent it is in the lower financial strata of society? Where is the same perspective in terms of the grotesquely unhealthy breakfast the family is eating?

I think it's important we see these elements of Katrina's life - especially since it's presented as an individual sampling of the kind of thing millions of Americans are living through. I hate to make generalizations, but I think there's some truth to this one. Poor people see the world through the eyes of hardship and life experience. Some even acquire a modicum of wealth, but they've had to WORK - really WORK for it. Their sense of observation and even balance seem far more aware and open. The rich, generally, are criminals and/or assholes who most always see things from an elevated position. Some are neither, but I'd suggest that even the well meaning ones have prejudices that temper their observations.

Since the directors have not addressed this, I have to ask:

Where, in this film, is the producer (who especially in television has a very strong creative hand) to address the weird perspectives I point out above? And let me be clear, where is that strong hand, NOT to censor, but to address the shortfalls in the direct cinema approach and to do so aesthetically within the context of the whole film and its style/POV?

There wasn't one. She's a Shriver. Why would she even think about it? Sure, her credentials as a journalist, filmmaker and philanthropist cannot be ignored, BUT there is a perspective she has not been able to bring to bear upon this film that her directors also ignore. Direct cinema, in its purest forms and as we know them today were, in fact, rooted in colonialism, prejudice, poverty, working-class values and very little access to post-secondary education in the Canadian province of Quebec. (Though, it would also be remiss of me to not acknowledge the influence of Dziga Vertov's "Truth of Cinema" movement in the 1920 - born out of repression, revolution and the eventual sad march to another form of repression with a different name.)

Look, I'm not suggested Shriver nor her directors must have tasted subjugation to utilize this form, BUT it's of utmost importance for all artists - especially those working in documentary - to leave as few stones unturned in their quest for truth.

While the journey of Katrina Gilbert moved and inspired me, I could only feel saddened and defeated by the end of the film - not just as a viewer, but for her, those like her and the world as a whole. One of the very last things the film leaves us with is the knowledge that Gilbert is finally getting her first raise at work - ever! It's in the amount of a few cents. Chances look good she'll continue living in a trailer park.

All the film really leaves me with, especially because it does such a good job of detailing her struggle and allowing us to get to know her as well as we can, is one overwhelming annoyance. With one pen-stroke upon a check book, Executive Producer Shriver (who lives in a $10 million dollar Brentwood mansion) could make this woman's life turn around.

Instead, Shriver made this movie. On other people's money.

Welcome to America, indeed.

Paycheck To Paycheck can be seen on HBO Canada. For Dates and Times, visit the HBO Canada website HERE.