Lenny Bruce in 'Lenny Bruce'

I'm a Lenny Bruce fan. I know about Lenny Bruce, and I know about 'The Lenny Bruce Performance Film'. I know the circumstances under which the film was made, and the circumstances of Lenny's life and career at that time. Consequently, my expectations for this performance were low.

But from the very start... he's good. Not brilliant... but good. Unfortunately, good is such a come-down for Lenny Bruce. And the performance is not helped by the way it is filmed. Lenny is never seen in full figure, which tends to be the best way to show stand-up. The dim lighting was also as strong as Lenny's eyes could stand.

He looks rather chubbier than in his prime, and the trademark sharp suit has been replaced with looser clothes to hide his bulkier body. But THIS IS Lenny Bruce performing on film, and it is because so little of this exists, this this film has the fascination it does.

Lenny is working with a document in hand - a transcript of one of his prosecutions - and the bulk of his performance revolves around what this contains... How what he has said and done in nightclubs was misrepresented by the legal system of America.

And this main section of his performance works remarkably well. He knows the points he wants to make, he easily find the sections of the transcript he needs, his vocal technique is still very much in evidence, and he is FUNNY.

But very soon, we see what is lacking in this Lenny Bruce. The incisive mind may still be there, but the playfulness is gone. While discussing the law, he talks about mime artists losing their "freedom of speech". What an opportunity! He misses what could have been one of the best laughs of the night.

But even this adequate performance can't be sustained. The end is heart breaking. An obligation of this performance was that Lenny reproduce some of the classic routines of just a few years earlier... and suddenly he tries.

Very sad. He can't do it. He can't reproduce his original passion or delivery of those bits. Maybe he can't remember. One routine lasts a few seconds, before he tries another. Important lines we know should be there are missing. Lenny is clearly in trouble.

It is like watching one of those "peace officers" he earlier criticizes for hopelessly trying to portray Lenny Bruce the performer in court. Without the real Lenny Bruce speaking, these famous routines quietly die a death.

Eventually the performance dwindles to a close. Lenny goes to a side door, and improvises some lines to passers-by. We can't really hear what he is saying, and it seems embarrassing to try. After a minute or so, the door allows his escape.

This was Lenny's next to last nightclub performance. Within a year he will be dead.

It was heartening to hear-about Lenny Bruce's posthumous-acquittal in 2002, but considering that our rights to free-speech are again directly-imperiled just makes this documentary of circa-1965 Lenny so chilling. Watching this documentary is akin to a snuff-film: you are watching the human-toll inflicted by Police and District Attorneys on a man who was likely the most important public, social-observer of his time. It's true, one can still see moments of Lenny's former-brilliance of only 3-4 years earlier in this performance, but it is dimmed. This document exists if only to instill in young-people, the outrage of what was committed on this great man. It is not entertainment, it is history.

This is what makes this--the one full-concert on-film--so disappointing. Not only is it shot-poorly, but copyright-owners have never done anything to locate better-prints; and like all other Lenny-material out there, no attempts at restoration or preservation seem to have been made. I know there is a dearth of Lenny-footage out there, but until the most-recent documentary, "Swear to Tell the Truth", all we have seen is recycled- footage. Archives need to open their doors to make these materials widely-available, this is our history, people.

So, since the early-70s, all we have had is this muddy-gem and "Lenny Bruce Without Tears." Bob Fosse's "Lenny" has some great-moments, and surely captures some aspects of Lenny Bruce, but isn't very probing about what made the comedian so daring for his time. I urge anyone out there who has footage of Lenny Bruce to put make it available to the public, because surely, there is much more to be seen. From Playboy's TV-show appearances that have only been shown in fragments, to press-conferences, and even newsreel-footage of shows, it's out there. It's time to re-examine this man's life in minute-detail, and researchers and fans-alike deserve access to more primary-materials. The recent "Let the Buyer Beware" box-set was an excellent-start.

I remember watching Fosse's biopic, Lenny, and seeing Hoffman's portrayal of the performance documented on this video, and thinking, how sad, that he went from such brilliance to such self-indulgent, self-serving self-defense. I didn't realize until I started watching the video that this was a recording of THAT performance, and it was interesting to watch from that historical perspective. But taken by itself it's more sad than funny. A great comedian, orator, commentator, oh, hell, just the great Lenny reduced to stumbling through court transcripts and embarrassingly trying to remember bits that he did years before. It's disjointed and often makes little sense; ironically, exactly the charges he levels at the "peace officer" assigned to "recreate" his act for the court and the transcripts made from an inaudible recording of one of his shows. Rent this one for a sense of perspective...as an example of Bruce's work, his art, it's a poor specimen, and will have you alternately feeling sorry for him and annoyed by him more than it will make you laugh or think; and those were the two things that, in his prime, Lenny made us do best.

This is a great chance to see Lenny performing during his last days. Not as funny or as snappy as his earlier performances, his intensity comes through loud and clear. Filmed in a small intimate club, you get the feeling of what it was like to see him live on stage. The included animated short, "Thank You, Masked Man," is a hilarious take on a popular Bruce stage routine.

What a painful film to watch. This was my first exposure -- I seem to recall that there was a film some years ago when I was younger, about Lenny Bruce, and this was not it. It was clear that his edge was gone -- he didn't pick it up until the very end of the performance. But altogether, it seems to prove that the man was an honest man, a performance artist, not a sleaze.