Cheap The King of Comedy (DVD) (Robert De Niro, Jerry Lewis) (Martin Scorsese) Price

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Customer Reviews of The King of Comedy

The King of Comedy
I found this film intriguing on several levels. Its depiction of the brutal realities of desperately trying to break into show business contrast with the unrelenting pressures on those few who have reached the top. Robert De Niro's performance as the aspiring comic framed perfectly the elements of charm, guile, delusion and dogged perserverance. Egged on by a similiarly deluded Marsha (Sandra Bernhard), his Rupert Pupkin is at once both pitiable and menacing. The object of his unwelcomed attention is the late night king of television, Jerry Langford, very believably portrayed by Jerry Lewis. In my opinion, Mr. Lewis' dramatic acting is the best he has ever done, not once slipping into easy slapstick. Perhaps some credit for this should go to Martin Scorsese's instincts as one of our finest directors. A host of cameos (including Scorsese) by famous personalities lend a certain believability to a community that is show business, a world that Pupkin desperately wants to be part of. This sometimes disturbing film was not a box office success but nonetheless is an interesting study of the glue that holds the glitz together.

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The Best Scorsese Film That Nobody Has Seen
The King of Comedy and After Hours are the two Scorsese films that never get the attention they deserve. Perhaps it's because they're too bitter, perhaps because they're too subtle, whatever the reason The King of Comedy is a splendid movie which is undoubtedly one of Scorsese's best.

The plot focuses on loser Rupert Pupkin, a middle aged man who obsesses over late night talk show host Jerry, played by Jerry Lewis in his best performance. As the story unfolds Rupert gradually becomes more fantical and at the end resorts to abducting Jerry.

What does Rupert want? Well mostly it seems that he's looking for attention. He wants to appear on Jerry's show and experience fame himself.

The King of Comedy is a very repelent movie because it's so cold. Every character is in their own way dispicable and hard to sympathize with. They are all selfish and egotisitical. The ending is such a vile, cold affair as Rupert is serenaded by an audience applauding him in his own mind... Fantastic. In fact there's not one person in this movie that you could really like. I believe that is what turned off so many viewers.

This is intended to be a dark movie and if you see it as such you'll have a blast. Like Election this is a film that has a very bitter and cynical sense of humour.

This is probably the best Scorsese film after GoodFellas and Casino, yes it's better (slightly) than Raging Bull.

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One of DeNiro's best roles
This scathing comedy about fame, television and hangers on to both is one of the best film roles Robert DeNiro has taken on. It is easily his best comic role, as he plays a schlemiel that finds a way -- an illegal way -- to worm his way onto network television to give a 5-minute monologue on a late night talk show. What is most telling in this film are the final mintues that document his fame after he goes to jail for kidnapping a talk show host. Few films have so accurately, and cynically, portrayed the world wide news media thirst for fame as these 10 minutes. If your cable system does not get WGN-TV from Chicago, which regularly schedules this movie, you may never have seen it. If so, it is worth your time and trouble. This is a funny, bitter and cyncial look at how fame warps people's minds, including little people, famous people and the media outlets that contribute to creation of fame.