The Jerk (1979)

 

Hvem sagde fjols?

Steve Martin is one of those comedians it has been difficult to ignore over the past forty years or so. I am not as big a fan of him as most people, but I have to admit that in his best movies, he is great. Unfortunately, he is not good enough to save his poorest movies. Well, in my humble opinion. “The Jerk” was his first movie in a starring role (at this time he was an established name on SNL) and besides marking to beginning of a long career in the movies, it also represents both the best and worst of Steve Martin and is as such a good representative movie of his.

The story (written by Martin himself) is about the not very bright but very enthusiastic Navin Johnson (Martin). He grows up in a black family in the Deep South, thinking he is miscolored black himself. Leaving the family to embark on a quest to make something of himself, he tumbles into a series of events with great naivety than lands him first a job at a gas station and then with a travelling circus. He makes it rich by accident by inventing a nose grip on glasses and loses it all again in lawsuits as it makes people cockeyed.

It is the sort of story that is not that important. Way too silly and unrealistic to be anything but a setting for Martin to fool around in. And fool around he does. This is where Steve Martin usually becomes divisive. He can be very funny, but one of his schticks is to go totally overboard exaggerated and that is in my opinion not that funny, but rather annoying. In the Jerk he does that a lot. However, when he tones it down and creates a funny setting, then he can be great. A good example is when he lands a job at the tank station. The owner (Jackie Mason) shows him a place where he can sleep and Navin, thinking he means the public toilet is super enthusiastic. On the other hand when a group of gangsters tries to pay for gas with a stolen credit card (belonging to Mrs. Nussbaum!), Navin tries to delay then by tying their car to the neighboring church. Watching the car drive off dragging a good section of the chapel, Navin tells the police to look for a blue Chevy dragging half a church. I still chuckle at the image.

Marvin is playing up against two women who are close to outshining him. Catlin Adams as Patty, the daredevil on her motorcycle is a hilarious character and just as mean and ridiculous as she sounds. Sadly, a bit underused. The second is Navin’s love of his life, Marie (Bernadette Peters) who is almost as silly and scatterbrained as Navin. Steve Martin is best when either of these two women are in the picture.

I doubt there is much of a message in “The Jerk”. Maybe some jabs at racism and racial slurs. Maybe some hits at idiots turned rich, but the point, I think, is the comedy involved and little else.

For better or worse, though, it is great with some comedies on the List and this could have been a lot worse. We spent an evening, the entire family, watching “The Jerk” and the consensus was that it was fun and enjoyable and that is really all you want. My son says the funniest scene was when he told his parents that he had found out what his special purpose was for… I do not think it is a comedy I will be remembering a long time and I have watched better and more memorable movies by Martin, but it is a fitting representative, and, again, you could choose a lot worse.