Based on an autobiographical play by Carl Reiner, ENTER LAUGHING is supposedly telling us how Carl became involved in the entertainment industry. His alter ego, David Kolowitz (Reni Santoni)lives with his parents (Shelley Winter and David Opatashu) in a Bronx apartment during the Depression. David is a high school graduate, and he wants to pursue a career in acting (he's constantly imitating Ronald Colman), but he is working for Mr. Foreman (Jack Gilford) in a electrical repair shop. At least he is supposed to be working (Foreman constantly complains that he comes in late, leaves early, and does less than he is being paid for). The only benefit David gets from working for Foreman is that his pal Marvin (Michael J. Pollard) can drop by from his nearby job (Foreman is not happy about seeing him around so often). Also, when Foreman has David deliver some machine or other to the dress making shop of Harry Hamburger (Don Rickles) David has the pleasure of seeing Harry's secretary/receptionist Linda (Nancy Kovack). Actually though David is seeing Wanda (Janet Margolin), his high school girlfriend.
David is aware of a ramshackle theater run by Harrison Marlow (Jose Ferrer) and his daughter Angela (Elaine May). Marlow is an old ham actor, and an alcoholic. He does not pay anyone who he "hires" for the acting roles - they are learning stagecraft from him, so they have to pay him. However, when he is "directing" his better training tells him what is good and what is bad. And David, when he shows up, is pretty bad (he starts reciting the words of his character by repeating the stage directions "Enter Laughing" as though they are something to say - hence the title of the play and film). Ferrer wants to throw him out, but the aging Angela (who desperately wants to meet some man who will want her) convinces Harrison to hire him...not too difficult as the two other would-be thespians (one is Rob Reiner as "Clark Baxter") are even weaker as performers. Besides the cast of the play (a melodrama dealing with skulduggery over an inheritance, and a possibly dissolute heir (played by David)) the stage crew is led by Mr. Pike (Richard Deacon) who is quite cynical about his job and job-site (he knows his boss's ego back and forward by now).
The fly in the ointment of David achieving his goal is that his parents want him to settle down. They would like to send David to Pharmacy School (for a useful profession) financed by Mr. Horowitz's more successful brother's money. David also has been leaving early to rehearse, and he has lied to get out (pretending that his father cannot afford a talus (prayer shawl) for a religious need. Foreman hears this and sympathizes. So to prevent further disruptions of David's work schedule, Foreman even buys a talus for David's father for about $28.00 (pretty steep for 1938). Besides having a useless article now, David also has to repay Foreman.
One lie leads to another. Wanda gets jealous of Angela when watching a rehearsal. David keeps demonstrating how woefully bad an actor he is. Foreman finally learns about the real reason for David leaving early, and as he does not think acting a good career for a sensible young man (he keeps needling David calling him "Mr. Barrymore"), he tips off Mrs. Horowitz. The latter and her unwilling husband push Jewish maternal guilt onto their son, and he ends up promising (angrily) that he will give up on acting. But will he? That is the issue settled in the last half hour of the film.
This is a wonderful comedy that is not as well known as it should be. The background of Depression New York (far from the glitz of Broadway - it's in the Bronx folks!) is well shown. The performers are enjoying themselves: note Gilford working on repairing a radio or some machine, and singing the one line of a song (see the "Summary" Line) again and again and again like a broken record. Ferrer, with his actual great stage career, brings a sense of reality to Marlow, with his ego and drinking still not preventing him from knowing what to do on stage (when David gets some stage fright Marlow steps in properly). Winters is playing the comic version of the monster mom she played in A PATCH OF BLUE, a Jewish mother who is smart about reality even as she realizes that she may be slightly breaking her son's heart. Pollard's Marvin is another of his classic dimwits, supposed to bring a tuxedo in a box to the theater for David's costume, but bringing the talus. Opatashu is a man who is currently sick and unemployed, but he is sensible (and finally agrees with his wife) but is still curious about the play (finding the tuxedo and talus, he asks if the play is about an English Jew). Rickles is an unexpected beneficiary of the madness, finding that Kovacks promises to marry him if he will loan his tux to David for the play, and suddenly realizing he is now able to marry a sexual bombshell. The comedy constantly goes into odd corners. Even Deacon has a moment when he hopes that by telling Ferrer some bad news won't lead to the latter hitting him!
I liked this film. I only add that it is like a companion film to ACT ONE with George Hamilton and Jason Robarts about Moss Hart. Like David/Carl, Moss too wanted to go into the theater and he does and succeeds well. And at the end Moss/George does become a success, and takes his parents out of their Bronx apartment. However, more realistically, David simply gains their approval for his manifold labors.
David is aware of a ramshackle theater run by Harrison Marlow (Jose Ferrer) and his daughter Angela (Elaine May). Marlow is an old ham actor, and an alcoholic. He does not pay anyone who he "hires" for the acting roles - they are learning stagecraft from him, so they have to pay him. However, when he is "directing" his better training tells him what is good and what is bad. And David, when he shows up, is pretty bad (he starts reciting the words of his character by repeating the stage directions "Enter Laughing" as though they are something to say - hence the title of the play and film). Ferrer wants to throw him out, but the aging Angela (who desperately wants to meet some man who will want her) convinces Harrison to hire him...not too difficult as the two other would-be thespians (one is Rob Reiner as "Clark Baxter") are even weaker as performers. Besides the cast of the play (a melodrama dealing with skulduggery over an inheritance, and a possibly dissolute heir (played by David)) the stage crew is led by Mr. Pike (Richard Deacon) who is quite cynical about his job and job-site (he knows his boss's ego back and forward by now).
The fly in the ointment of David achieving his goal is that his parents want him to settle down. They would like to send David to Pharmacy School (for a useful profession) financed by Mr. Horowitz's more successful brother's money. David also has been leaving early to rehearse, and he has lied to get out (pretending that his father cannot afford a talus (prayer shawl) for a religious need. Foreman hears this and sympathizes. So to prevent further disruptions of David's work schedule, Foreman even buys a talus for David's father for about $28.00 (pretty steep for 1938). Besides having a useless article now, David also has to repay Foreman.
One lie leads to another. Wanda gets jealous of Angela when watching a rehearsal. David keeps demonstrating how woefully bad an actor he is. Foreman finally learns about the real reason for David leaving early, and as he does not think acting a good career for a sensible young man (he keeps needling David calling him "Mr. Barrymore"), he tips off Mrs. Horowitz. The latter and her unwilling husband push Jewish maternal guilt onto their son, and he ends up promising (angrily) that he will give up on acting. But will he? That is the issue settled in the last half hour of the film.
This is a wonderful comedy that is not as well known as it should be. The background of Depression New York (far from the glitz of Broadway - it's in the Bronx folks!) is well shown. The performers are enjoying themselves: note Gilford working on repairing a radio or some machine, and singing the one line of a song (see the "Summary" Line) again and again and again like a broken record. Ferrer, with his actual great stage career, brings a sense of reality to Marlow, with his ego and drinking still not preventing him from knowing what to do on stage (when David gets some stage fright Marlow steps in properly). Winters is playing the comic version of the monster mom she played in A PATCH OF BLUE, a Jewish mother who is smart about reality even as she realizes that she may be slightly breaking her son's heart. Pollard's Marvin is another of his classic dimwits, supposed to bring a tuxedo in a box to the theater for David's costume, but bringing the talus. Opatashu is a man who is currently sick and unemployed, but he is sensible (and finally agrees with his wife) but is still curious about the play (finding the tuxedo and talus, he asks if the play is about an English Jew). Rickles is an unexpected beneficiary of the madness, finding that Kovacks promises to marry him if he will loan his tux to David for the play, and suddenly realizing he is now able to marry a sexual bombshell. The comedy constantly goes into odd corners. Even Deacon has a moment when he hopes that by telling Ferrer some bad news won't lead to the latter hitting him!
I liked this film. I only add that it is like a companion film to ACT ONE with George Hamilton and Jason Robarts about Moss Hart. Like David/Carl, Moss too wanted to go into the theater and he does and succeeds well. And at the end Moss/George does become a success, and takes his parents out of their Bronx apartment. However, more realistically, David simply gains their approval for his manifold labors.