Review of Lenny Bruce: Without Tears (1972) by Jason S — 09 Apr 2008

This documentary tells the story of Lenny Bruce with all the filmmaking passion of a PBS nature documentary from the 50s. It is a dull film edited sloppily and with a narrator who is laughably droll. Lenny Bruce was an important comedian, but his humor doesn?t really stand up well today, one can see the boldness in the craft, but I?d be lying if I said any of this makes me laugh.

Furthermore, most of Bruce?s best material was never recorded, the video footage here is pretty tame. There is better material in the audio recordings which for some reason is accompanied here b strange, often irrelevant stock footage.

For a better chronicle of the life of Lenny Bruce check out the 1974 Bob Fosse directed biopic Lenny, which featured Dustin Hoffman recreating much better material that was never recorded.