The King of Comedy is the epitome of the idiom “Never meet your heroes.” It walks the line between a black comedy and a thriller. The only difference is its lighter tone in some scenes and a musical score that isn’t too ominous.
Rupert Pupkin (Robert DeNiro) is the type of person you’d cross the street or duck into a business if you saw him on the street walking your way. He’s not the type of person you to start talking to because he might read your intention wrong. Rupert is mentally ill, but he’s not really violent. Rupert lives in his own world where he sees himself as the next greatest comedian.
And all he needs is a shot on The Jerry Langford Show, which is one of the biggest late-night TV talk shows. Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis) is a narcissistic egomaniac who is loved too much by his fans. One of them, Masha (Sandra Bernhard), sees herself as a potential lover to Jerry so much she sneaks into his limo at the beginning of the movie to have sex with him.
This allows Rupert to get in the limo while throwing her out. They leave the back alley of the studio where Jerry has just finished taping the show. Jerry and Rupert talk but it’s mostly because Jerry knows he’s never going to see this man again. But when Jerry gives Rupert false hope he will give him a spot on an upcoming show, Rupert begins to see himself hitting it off and that he and Jerry are good friends.
Rupert lives with his mother or maybe he thinks she’s still alive. His mother (whose voice is provided off-screen at all times by Catherine Scorsese) is never seen and seems to always be criticizing Rupert. And she has good reason. Rupert wants to date Rita Keene (Diahnne Abbott) who is a former classmate of Rupert’s who barely remembers him. But Rupert has a fantasy of a surprise wedding to her on Jerry’s show which Jerry as the best man. Rupert is like Norman Bates if his dream was comedy instead of taxidermy.
Rupert imagines conversations with Jerry sometimes talking to someone off screen whose not there. But filmmaker Martin Scorsese films Jerry’s scene in the fantasy world and Rupert responding in the real world where he’s in a basement. This basement also contains black and white life-size phots of celebrities that Rupert pretends to interview as a talk show host himself.
Yes, he’s mentally unhinged. But as the movie goes on, Rupert’s behavior gets worse. During one of the most infamous scenes, Rupert invites himself and Rita to Jerry’s house in the Hamptons. The scene is played so uneasy. Imagine the scene in Taxi Driver where Travis Bickle takes Betsy to a porno movie. You feel really bad for Rita and that leaves a question if Jerry is rightfully angry and upset or is really like this in real life.
Earlier in the movie, Jerry is walking from his Manhattan condo to the studio when a woman on a payphone wants him to talk to a family member. When Jerry says he can’t, she responds she hopes he gets cancer. What exactly is the boundary and when is it crossed? Jerry is a celebrity but he’s also a person too. Why shouldn’t he be allowed to take a walk without being accosted by people who want something out of him?
Eventually, Rupert and Masha decide to kidnap Jerry even though they are sloppy at it. They use a toy gun and Rupert drops it for a second while trying to accost Jerry. When he has Jerry read off cue cards on the phone, one is upside down and another is blank. He’s not too smart. Mainly, Scorsese, DeNiro and writer Paul D. Zimmerman make Rupert just as much as a schlep as possible. But they add the idea that he can be dangerous.
What Rupert wants is just to go on the show and do a set. But he doesn’t understand that show business, like everything else, isn’t fair. How many people have approach Jerry and he said, “Give my office a call” and then gave up after a few phone calls that aren’t returned. Rupert, on the other hand, has a different mindset.
When the movie came out in late February 1983, stalking wasn’t really an issue people focused on. This is ironic because Taxi Driver reportedly encouraged John Hinckley to try to assassinate President Ronald Reagan to encourage Jodie Foster. Less than a year before the movie premiered, late actress Theresa Saldana, who co-starred along with DeNiro in Raging Bull, was attacked by a stalker Arthur Richard Jackson and was stabbed.
She survived when a deliveryman named Jeff Fenn heard her screaming and reportedly became more enraged that Saldana was stabbed outside her apartment building in full view of people watching and doing nothing. He subdued Jackson until the authorities could arrive to arrest him. Jackson had contacted Saldana’s mother posing as an assistant to Scorsese to drop off a script so he could get her address.
The incident would later inspire Robert John Bardo to hire a private investigator to obtain the address of actress Rebecca Schaefer who he fatally shot. This happened on July 1989 and as the 1990s began stalking began to be taken more seriously, even though it’s still not the best.
Scorsese was not in the best health while filming the movie during the summer of 1981 and was suffering from exhaustion and pneumonia. The movie had a budget of $19 million, but tanked with only $2.5 million overall at the box office. It received rave reviews but Scorsese walked away from filmmaking for a while. As word spread that Hinckley had been inspired by Taxi Driver, he almost retired from filmmaking.
Just like that movie, the ending has been debated if it’s for real or something going on in Rupert’s fantasy. Abbot, who was married to DeNiro during the making of this movie, also played the concession clerk at the porno house Travis tries to flirt with.
While the movie was mostly forgotten for a while and DeNiro and Scorsese wouldn’t work together until Goodfellas, he’s gotten a rebirth in the 21st Century. Even though DeNiro is considered a serious actor, he has been able to show he can do comedy, sometimes well and sometimes bad.
In a tribute to this movie, DeNiro was cast as Murray Franklin, a late-night TV talk show host in the early 1980s, in Todd Phillips’ Oscar-winning Joker, which also contains elements of the movie.
As for Lewis, himself, his portrayal has been called by those who knew him best, that it’s accurate and despite making comedy movies, he wasn’t a nice guy. Like the saying goes, “Never meet your heroes.”
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Zane Says 