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The King of Comedy (1983)
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Though a box-office failure, this black comedy is now considered by many to be Martin Scorsese's unsung masterpiece. Of all the director's outings with sparring partner Robert De Niro, it's the strangest. De Niro plays Rupert Pupkin, an aspiring stand-up comedian and stalker-in-waiting who dreams of fronting his own TV show, rehearses for this moment of glory in his mother's basement and spends half his life waiting, symbolically, in reception. It's a powerful, complex performance, one that carries the story from farce into tragedy with ease, and keeps us on his side. Jerry Lewis is magnificent as the chilly old pro and chat-show king Jerry Langford, and Scorsese gives us another New York, the cruel but bewitching network TV capital of America. Pupkin's catch phrase remains immortal: “Better to be king for a night than schmuck for a lifetime.” AC
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| Contains some swearing. |
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Tell us what you think
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Running time
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104min
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Country of origin
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US
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Genre
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Comedy Drama
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Original language
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English
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Screenplay
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Paul D Zimmerman
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Theatrical distributor
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20th Century Fox Film Co. Ltd
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UK cinema certificate
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PG
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Film certification logos reproduced by kind permission of BBFC |
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