A Lively and Satisfying Biopic

(102424) In the mid to late 70s the airing of each week’s episode of Saturday Night Live was greeted by fans as an important cultural event. The show was young, hip, brash, and bold, and it instantly made all the other American comedy shows seem instantly outdated and hopelessly old fashioned. The show also seemed to speak for the then twenty-something generation and waning counterculture more than any other program of its time.

Many young people actually stayed in to watch it and if you missed an episode you couldn’t participate in the inevitable discussions people had about it at work on Monday. The show had a devoted fan following that would arguably not be matched again until the advent of Twin Peaks in the 90s. Both shows (along with Monty Python and Star Trek) broke the mold and changed TV forever and spawned innumerable imitators . Although the show still often discovers some great new talent (I like Heidi Gardner and Cloe Fineman best in the current cast), it is arguably a shadow of what it once was, and it does not occupy a central place anymore in the media or like it once did. There is so much more you can do on streaming and cable that nothing done on regular TV is likely to shock anyone.

Now after fifty years, we are finally getting a cinematic dramatization of the events leading up to SNL’s historic first episode. The film captures the wit and anarchic spirit of the inexperienced first cast, which was led by Lorne Michaels who was just barely able to keep it all together. The film is nearly shot in real time and it takes place just a little longer than the initial episode and this makes viewers believe they are there actually seeing the real events as they are happening.
 
Saturday Night is a lively and mostly satisfying film that captures much of the energy and chaotic nature of the early program before it became defined. The show in the beginning was an odd combination of often mismatched elements such as the skits featuring the Not Ready for Prime-Time Players, standup comedy sequence, original videos, and even puppetry-that's right puppetry. Post hippy Jim Henson puppeteer is constantly pranked and taunted by the other cast members. He is depicted dressed in psychedelic garb which makes him resemble the late Chicago artist/poet, Lee Groban.

The film was directed by Jason Reitman, the talented son of Comedy director Ivan Reitman. Jason had his share of success in cinema and he made Thank You for Smoking, Young Adult and the most impressive of all Juno which was co-written by Diablo Cody. Unfortunately he also did Ghost Busters: Frozen Empire which to now has been his career low point.

One of the best aspects of the film is the casting for many of the Not Ready for Time Player roles. The producers did not necessarily pick people that closely resemble the characters, but they did something even better. They chose cast members that could capture the vocal inflexions, facial expressions and mannerisms of the actors. I know who the character playing Billy Crystal (played briefly by Nicholas Podnay) was supposed to be immediately because of how he talked and his tones even though he does not look resemble him. Corey Michael Smith (of Carol and May December) captures much of the confidence, arrogance and rudeness of the original star of the show, Chevy Chase as well as the qualities that eventually got him trouble (it seems like everyone who ever worked with him has a bad Chevy Chase story.) He is basically portrayed as a handsome, arrogant, charismatic and talented asshole, The portrayal is in agreement with how many books including: "Live from New York: An Uncensored History SNL, by Its Stars, Writers, And Guests" as well as fellow actors that have portrayed him.

Actor Matt Wood is able to channel much of the Belushi’s manic crazy energy. He is portrayed as being almost completely unstable and he doesn’t seem to even know if he wants to do the show until the last minute. He won’t sign his contract and he disappears right before the show is set to air and no one knows if he even will be there. An unlucky assistant Dick Ebersol (who would later run the show) who assisted Michales and eventually took over the show is given the task of trying to track down Belushi.

Most of the rest of the cast of supporting characters is also surprisingly good and every single character is unique and has their own perspective. Michael O Donahue, who was the main writer, is portrayed as a counter cultural prankster and surrealist who likes to create chaos. He constantly angers the censor (who is kind of like Margaret Dupont to his Groucho) who doesn’t understand much of what he is doing. There is a surprisingly large amount of time devoted to the smart and funny Rose Schuster who has a very unconventional relationship with her husband, producer Lorne Michaels. which could only have been seen as normal during the sexual revolution. Although she is married to Lorne she is openly sleeping with Dan Aykroyd and at one point she tells Lorne, “We.re married but I’m not your wife.” Garrett Morris is portrayed sympathetically by Lamorne Harris. Morris was not a comedian but a trained Julliard trained singer, Broadway star and playwright. The film shows how despite his obvious talents much of his potential was squandered on the show because he always played stereotypical roles and there were no black writers to give him sympathetic or dignified parts.

But the main character with the biggest role is Lorne Michaels. Gabriel LaBelle is impressive as Lorne playing a determined man with a vision. Like Jann Wenner did in Rolling Stone magazine, Michaels managed to capture the craziness and rebellion of the 60's/70's counterculture and sell it in a palatable form that would be accepted by Middle-America. He is definitely the hero of the story navigating a sinking ship through troubled waters. He has to deal with temperamental comedians that don’t get along, as well as bosses that prejudge the show. Also, he and doing a show with large sections that are unscripted and twice as much material as he can fit into an hour a half so some feeling is bound to be hurt. But Michaels rarely loses sight of his vision and tells one exec that he hopes to “create an explosion on every screen in America.”

The film recreates some of the most ground-breaking skits of the show. Chevy does one of his many classic falls, we see Michael O Donahue doing an impersonation of Mr. Rogers with needles in his eye, Garrett Morris does his song about how he hates white people and Andy Kaufman (Nicholas Braun) does his foreign guy character which was an embryonic form of the Latka Gravas character he later played on Taxi.

A prudish censor who dies not understand the show and its language at all asks what the meaning of some of the slang in the show and the cast members give her false definitions for word and phrases that definitely have sexual connotations like “golden shower.” At one point most of the cast openly rebels against her and chants “I am Satan” in unison in a parody of the best scene in Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus. Like the punk rockers that emerged around the same time as the premier of the show they display a healthy contempt for much of what the comedians did before them.

The film does a great job at capturing the controversial nature of the show and the contempt that the old guard and TV establishment expressed towards it. Some of the NBC execuitives them hated the show because they feared it was planting the seeds of their own demise and their way of doing things. David Tebet, a producer played by Willem Dafoe threatens to cancel the show at the last minute, and Milton Berle insults Chevy Chase to his face while Johnny Carson calls up Lorne Michaels before the show and implies SNL is just a place holder to be shown instead of the Tonight Show. Because Johnny can’t be on every night, Lorne Michaels is informed that the network does not even want the show to succeed. They green lit the show just to have more leverage to drive down Carson’s salary. As most of us know, it ended up being a runaway hit and a huge success anyway. Despite some lean and unsuccessful times (and the occasional WWE "Saturday Night Main Event" wrestling event), it has never been off the air on Saturday Night since its debut.

The film’s main weakness is how the female Not Ready for Prime-Time characters are portrayed. Occasionally some of the strength of Jane Curtin comes through in Kim Matula’s portrayal and Ellas Hunt captures some of Gilda Radner’s girlishness, compassion and spontaneity. Sadly art imitates life here as the  women are all fatally underdeveloped, just like the performers they portray in the show were due to the rampant sexism back-stage. The female SNL Not Ready for Primetime Players were an important part of the show but they are too often portrayed as giggling ninnies or living wallpaper. In all fairness, they were not the biggest stars that emerged from the show and I am sure lots of people would be disappointed if they cut too many of the Chevy Chase or John Belushi scenes. Maybe they should just do a longer curt or do a whole other film from the women’s perspectives. The sexism that the women experienced at the time was best encapsulated in the Belushi quote: "except for Gilda, women can't be funny because they don't have the funny organ".
 
Although this film has a few defects it Is still an enjoyable and illuminating comedic time piece that admirers of the original (and arguably the best) cast will appreciate. Fans of classic TV should be more than satisfied with it, and there is a possibility that some of the names of people that worked on the film will come up during the awards shows.