Lenny Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		4.0

Lenny Blu-ray Movie Review

Freedom of (offensive) speech.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 26, 2015

Bob Fosse had one of the more fascinating film careers of his time, one that went from supposed disaster (Sweet Charity) to triumph (Cabaret) in his first two “at bats” as director, but which then teetered precariously in a kind of self aware limbo that produced Lenny in 1974, All That Jazz in 1979 and Star 80 in 1983. That’s a rather relatively small oeuvre, at least considering Fosse’s sometimes outsized reputation, but it perhaps reflects the respect and admiration Fosse had amassed not only through his iconic Broadway stagings but for his journeyman appearances as a dancer and actor in a number of 1950s film musicals. The bulk of Fosse’s film legend rests squarely on the capable shoulders of Cabaret and All That Jazz, but I’ve always had a soft spot for Lenny and (especially) Sweet Charity. In fact I personally find Sweet Charity to be a generally more capable adaptation of its stage version than Cabaret, which Fosse rightly or wrongly largely divorced from its Broadway formulation to create something decidedly more trenchant and politically on the nose. Sweet Charity sticks a bit closer to its stage roots than the film version of Cabaret, and has a natural ebullience and briskness that is only partially diminished by Fosse’s attempt at injecting “modern” style into the proceedings with gimmicks like freeze frames and montages of still photographs. And the dancing in Sweet Charity—is there any other film of this era that offers the visceral delights of epics like “Rich Man’s Frug”? Lenny, of course, is a different beast altogether, but it bears Fosse’s imprimatur just as surely as Sweet Charity does. Much like the original stage version of Sweet Charity owes a large debt of gratitude to Federico Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria, Lenny offers a stylistic homage to the great Italian director, a tribute which Fosse continued to exploit in All That Jazz. Lenny is a carnival of excess and ego, playing like a morphine induced dream version of any given surreal sequence from an iconic Fellini film like 8½. Structurally problematic and probably too self-conscious for its own good, the film still offers a gut wrenching portrayal of an artist whose “mission” takes over his life, ultimately leading to his downfall.

Lenny had been a sensation on Broadway, where it provided Cliff Gorman the showcase role of his career, one that ultimately resulted in a Tony Award. That year became infamous to a certain type of theater geek when Stephen Sondheim’s legendary musical Follies lost out on the prize for Best Musical to Joseph Papp’s imaginative reboot of Two Gentlemen of Verona, a musical that boasted a score by Galt McDermot of Hair fame. Interestingly, Hair’s firebrand director Tom O’Horgan was responsible for helming Lenny on Broadway (that same year he also brought Jesus Christ Superstar to Broadway—neither Lenny nor the Lloyd Webber musical received directing nominations, though O'Horgan won the somewhat less prestigious Drama Desk Award for directing Lenny). O’Horgan’s approach toward the material was fairly chaotic, though it’s important to note that Julian Barry’s original stage version was (kind of like Cabaret) a much different commodity than what eventually ended up on the screen, despite the fact that Barry himself did the adapting.

The biggest difference is the film’s reliance on the memories of Honey Bruce (Valerie Perrine, Academy Award nominated for this performance). While the film is relentlessly centered on Lenny Bruce (Dustin Hoffman, also Academy Award nominated), it’s frequently through the filter of Honey’s memories, memories that may or may not be addled by years of drug abuse. In fact large swaths of the film play rather like a low level hallucination, with Fosse’s camera favoring odd framings and unapologetically Felliniesque emphases on odd faces.

Lenny doesn’t just push the comedic envelope in his increasingly acerbic and obscenity laced stand up routines, he fairly thrusts it, something that initially seems a reaction to the staid sociopolitical climes of America just awakening from eight years of Eisenhower somnambulence. However, as the sixties get underway, Lenny’s in your face attitude seems prescient, foreshadowing an increasingly angst filled and ultimately provocative youth culture which would finally erupt in the late sixties, ironically after Bruce himself died of an accidental overdose in 1966.

Fosse tosses together elements from Lenny and Honey’s lives almost willy nilly at times, adding to the drug fueled ambience of the piece. Timeframes flit to and fro, offering contrasts between Lenny’s relatively innocent younger years and the more jaded “elder” he became in a rather short amount of time, after repeated run ins with the law and a less than friendly working environment. Much as the Broadway play gave Gorman his signature role, the film version offers Hoffman one of his most visceral roles from this era. He is almost feral in his take on Bruce’s volcanic personality, though to his credit he is able to detail (if only fitfully at times) the vulnerability lurking beneath Bruce’s intentionally brusque exterior. Perrine is fascinating as Honey, a seemingly sweet girl lost in a miasma of drug use and other bad decisions.

While the Broadway play had a limited number of actors playing a variety of roles, the film version of course opts for individual performers essaying each part. Joe Silver received a Tony nomination for playing a bunch of parts on stage, including old time comedian Sherman Hart. On film that role is given to the unlikely suspect of Gary Morton (AKA Mr. Lucille Ball), who is surprisingly spry. A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, back in the day when people actually had to write letters to the editor if they didn't like a review (the horror), I once angered a reader for suggesting that the unseen interviewer asking questions off screen is none other than Fosse himself (a suggestion this reader found pretentious on my part, evidently). This was long before the days of the internet, but I notice that the IMDb does indeed have Fosse listed as the Interviewer.

Lenny Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Lenny is presented on Blu-ray with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. Bruce Surtees' Academy Award nominated black and white photography looks incredibly lustrous in this high definition presentation, aided by really sumptuously deep black levels and nicely modulated gray scale. A lot of the club scenes (and even other scenes) play out against either total darkness or something very close to it, and despite this artifice, detail remains consistently strong throughout the presentation. Fosse and Surtees exploit extreme close-ups quite a bit of the time (see screenshot 6), and those reveal abundant detail and fine detail. There are some very minor issues with the elements in the form of momentary specks. The grain field is very organic looking (and relatively heavy). There are no issues with image instability and no compression artifacts of any note.

Lenny Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Lenny's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio Mono mix suffices perfectly well for this film which is made up by and large of first person confessionals and relatively undemanding scenes like Bruce's standup or interchanges between him and various other characters. Ralph Burns' score, which includes ubiquitous source cues like Thelonius Monk's "Straight, No Chaser," sounds clear and full bodied. Fidelity is excellent and there are no issues of any kind to report.

Lenny Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Original Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 2:51)


• MGM 90th Anniversary Trailer (1080p; 2:06)


• Isolated Score Track is presented in DTS-HD Master Audio Mono.


• Audio Commentary features Twilight Time's Julie Kirgo and Nick Redman.

Lenny Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I saw the original Bob Fosse staging of the Broadway musical Pippin when I was a kid and it was literally a life changing moment for me. I was already enamored of Sweet Charity by that time, and actually ended up winning a Scholastic Magazines essay contest when I wrote about Fosse's trifecta the year he marauded through the Tonys (for Pippin, in fact), Oscars (Cabaret) and Emmys (Liza With a Z). I admired Lenny back when it was originally released, and revisiting it for this review for the first time in many years reminded me once again of what a titanic force Fosse must have been during this period. Like many titanic forces, there's a hint of chaos and things spiralling out of control at times, but that's perhaps perfectly in tune with Bruce's own life. Lenny has some structural issues, and Fosse's obvious Fellini obsession occasionally gets in the way of narrative flow, but this is a viscerally exciting film that offers incredible performances by Hoffman and Perrine. Technical merits are very strong and Lenny comes Highly recommended.