Art Carney Movies

This spoof of a "typical" double-feature bill of the 1930s is introduced by George Burns, who explains that we're about to see two classic films produced by the legendary Warren Brothers. The first, "Dynamite Fists," is a black-and-white takeoff of such boxing dramas as Golden Boy. Harry Hamlin plays a John Garfield-like pugilist who is brought along by a tough-but-lovable fight promoter George C. Scott. Nasty gangster Eli Wallach attempts to compromise Hamlin by offering him the delectable Trish VanDevere, but Hamlin proves loyal to Scott. When Scott is killed by Wallach, Hamlin vows to become an attorney and bring the murderer to justice -- which he does in the space of one year. Along the way, Hamlin's gangster brother-in-law secures an eye operation for his nearly blind sister Kathleen Beller (whose bump-in-the-wall myopia is good for several laughs). After "Dynamite Fists," we are treated to a coming-attractions trailer for a Dawn Patrol-style aviation epic, again starring George C. Scott. The last segment, "Blansky's Beauties of 1933," is an all-stops-out Technicolor lampoon of Busby Berkeley musicals. Told by doctor Art Carney that he is dying, Broadway impresario Blansky (George C. Scott again) determines to produce one last spectacular show before the curtain goes down for good. The highlights in "Blansky's Beauties" are too numerous to mention here: memorable bits include composer Barry Bostwick's rooftop number, and the opening dialogue exchange between Carney and Scott (told that he has a month to live, Scott philosophically replies that at least he has 30 days left -- whereupon Carney dolefully reminds his patient that it's February). An additional sequence, parodying the Republic serials of the era, was filmed for Movie, Movie but cut from the final release print. Michael Kidd, who plays "Pop Popchick" in "Dynamite Fists," handled the choreography in "Blansky's Beauties." On the videocassette version of Movie, Movie, "Dynamite Fists" has been reprocessed in color. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A priest tries to help a young prostitute escape the life of sex and drugs in this exploitation drama. Father Jack (Chuck Shamata) tries to help 14-year-old Lindsay (Heather Kjollesdal) get off the streets to save her young life. Monsignor O'Brien (Art Carney) becomes concerned when Jack seems to be spending too much time trying to save the girl he believes belongs in a shelter. Lindsay left home after suffering from an incestuous relationship with her father, but now she turns tricks for her sleazy boyfriend Lenny (Daniel MacIvor). Jack hopes to intervene before the young teen ends up dead. Contains nudity and profanity. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

In his second Playhouse 90 appearance of the 1956-57 season, Art Crney stars as Robert Briscoe, the colorful, controversial Lord Mayor of Dublin, Ireland. Although of Jewish parentage, Briscoe was "accepted" as a Hibernian through and through on the strength of his fearless patriotism during the 1916 Irish Rebellion against British rule. As a member in good standing of the original Irish Republican Army and the nationalist Sinn Fein movement, Briscoe worked side by side with another legendary Irish freedom fighter, Eamon de Valera, reserving his fighting for the nighttime hours while pursuing a daytime job as a wool salesman. Briscoe's tireless and death-defying efforts on behalf of his countrymen were rewarded in 1956, when he won the mayoral race in the Dublin that he helped to wrest free from British domination. This 90-minute drama proved quite an eye-opener to TV fans who knew Art Carney only for his comic characterizations on The Jackie Gleason Show. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Roadie is a showbiz saga about the working slobs who make live pop-music performances happen. Texas good ol' boy Travis W. Redfish (pop singer Meat Loaf) drives a Shiner beer truck on his appointed rounds, but he becomes smitten with rock groupie Lola Bouillabase (Kaki Hunter), a "roadie" whose sole ambition in life is to bed her idol, Alice Cooper (playing himself). Travis' grizzled pappy, Corpus C. Redfish (Art Carney), feels disgusted by his son's lifestyle. After hearing that Cooper and his band are on tour, Lola sets out to catch up to them and offer her services, with Travis in pursuit. Along the way, they meet a number of pop-music stars -- Blondie, Asleep at the Wheel, Hank Williams Jr., Roy Orbison, and Ramblin' Jack Elliott -- who are all working on their own tours. Travis signs on, himself, as a groupie for a rock band, and is quickly dubbed "greatest roadie of all time," but he soon realizes that he must return to Texas for the wedding of his sister and his best friend. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide

Billy Dee Williams stars as legendary ragtime pianist/composer Scott Joplin in this 1977 biopic. Despite his brilliance, Joplin (1868-1917) was confined by the color of his skin to the dregs of show business in the late 19th century. While competing in a musical contest, Joplin introduces his most famous composition, "The Maple Leaf Rag", thereby commanding the attention of a white music publisher. Offered a ridiculously low price for the song, Joplin nevertheless agrees to sell his composition, figuring that he has a better chance at fame and fortune once he's published. Before long, Ragtime music has become a national craze, and Joplin is rich beyond his wildest dreams. But the composer realizes that his brand of music is not considered respectable, and yearns to write something of more lasting value--a concerto, perhaps, or even an opera. Alas, Joplin's talents begin failing him, and by age 49 he is on the brink of death, a victim of syphilis. Originally made for television by Motown Films, Scott Joplin was released theatrically by Universal Pictures. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This video contains a star-studded broadcast of the 1959 Emmy Awards Ceremony. It also contains a lively comedy short from 1931. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Jake (Charles Grodin), an insurance investigator, is assigned to probe the killing of a wealthy businessman in Acapulco. To help him, he hires a beautiful New York model, Ellie (Farah Fawcett), to act as his wife, and they pretend to be tourists on vacation. Art Carney plays Marcus, a local detective who befriends Jake but gets him into various scrapes. Joan Collins also appears as the suspicious Nera. Sunburn was a made-for-TV movie which featured a pop-song soundtrack blaring from characters' tape recorders that included tunes by Herbie Hancock. The movie was based on the novel The Bind by Stanley Ellin. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide

84-year-old James Cagney delivered his final performance in the TV movie Terrible Joe Moran. Cagney plays a former boxing champ, now enfeebled and bound to a wheelchair (we see him in his prime via a clip from Cagney's 1932 vehicle Winner Take All). Long estranged from his family, the ex-boxer grudgingly allows his granddaughter (Ellen Barkin) to move in with him and his former trainer (beautifully played by Art Carney). The girl is unfortunately a compulsive thief, carrying on a romance with a petty crook with mob connections. The broken-hearted grandfather agrees to pay off the boy friend's debts so long as his granddaughter leaves and never returns. But Terrible Joe Moran and his chastened grandchild are tearfully reunited in the finale. Critics in 1984 went overboard praising the obviously ailing James Cagney for his bravura performance; only after his death did the truth come out that most of Cagney's dialogue had been dubbed in by an impressionist. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this youthful fantasy, a young boy, learns how to time travel and decides to try and save the life of his grandfather, a pilot who tragically died while attempting to fly across the Atlantic. The trouble is, the boy does not stop to think about the historical ramifications of his actions. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This witty version of Hans Christian Anderson's moral tale of a king whose vanity makes him an easy mark for con artists, features Sid Caesar and Art Carney. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Although he tried very hard to become a movie star as well as create and produce television entertainment that was a lot flashier, like it or not, The Honeymooners ended up being the single creation for which Jackie Gleason was best known. One irony surrounding its recognition over the decades was that, as a series in its own right, it was only on for a single season, 1955-1956, with 39 episodes running 26 minutes each. They were performed in front of a live audience but shot on film to be broadcast later. All of the other Honeymooners shows -- the so-called "Lost Episodes" -- were comedy sketches of varying lengths, performed and broadcast live as part of Gleason's larger variety program The Jackie Gleason Show; they were preserved on kinescopes, films shot of the show off of a studio monitor. The results were crude, but effective, rather like the sketch comedy itself. The sketch performances of The Honeymooners from 1952-1955 may have established the setting, the premise, and the characters, but those 39 filmed episodes showed what could be done with them under ideal circumstances.

Set in a working-class section of Brooklyn (actually resembling Bushwick, but referred to as Bensonhurst because the latter sounded more "Brooklyn-like" to people from outside New York), the series told of the daily life of bus driver Ralph Kramden (Jackie Gleason) and his wife Alice (Audrey Meadows) of 328 Chauncey Street, a rundown, walk-up apartment building, and their neighbors and best friends, Ed Norton (Art Carney), a sewer-worker, and his wife Trixie (Joyce Randolph). Most of the action took place in the Kramdens' dimly lit, dingy apartment, with its table, chairs, dresser, and ice-box; we occasionally see the Nortons' better-decorated apartment upstairs, and every so often a scene might be set at Ralph's bus company or on a street adjacent to where Norton was working in a man-hole or the local pool room. Rarely there would be a scene in a fancy restaurant or at the home of one of Ralph's bosses or a wealthy acquaintance. Most of the scripts dealt with one of Ralph's "million-dollar ideas" and how they seemed to inevitably end in disaster for Ralph and Norton, usually with Alice (often joined by Trixie) watching sardonically from the sidelines. This often occurred after an argument in which Ralph has gesticulated with his fist in Alice's direction and muttered, "Bang! -- Zoom!" or "Do you want to go to the Moon?" Some of the other scripts dealt with Ralph and Norton's lodge, the Loyal Order of Racoons, or Ralph's stormy relationship with Alice's mother.

That The Honeymooners could rival the impact of I Love Lucy, which ran years longer and left behind many hundreds more episodes, is a tribute to its cast and crew, especially the show's writers. The best of The Honeymooners' scripts (and there were a lot that could qualify) were seamless, self-contained wholes unto themselves. The episodes come off as being every bit as beautifully symmetrical as the best one-act plays, often with some surprisingly serious subtexts beneath the surface, and a delightful self-referential quality where its own medium was concerned. The opening episode, "TV or Not TV," in which Ralph and Ed buy a television set jointly, only to discover that they can't get along for even a single night watching the set, is a side-splittingly comic sketch and essay on the seductive power of television on people's lives, presented at a time when it was a new device in homes. "Better Living Through TV" takes us back to the same subject from a slightly different angle and, in the process, manages to mercilessly parody a then-current Chef Boyardee commercial -- as well as poke fun at Gleason's avoidance of complete rehearsals -- while anticipating at least a generation's worth of laughable, late-night commercials to come. "The $99,000 Answer" gives us yet another glimpse of what television meant to (and did to) people in the 1950s.

All through the series, there were woven into the scripts little references to television as a pop-culture force, including the episodes "Ralph Kramden Inc.," "Here Comes the Bride," "The Baby-Sitter," etc. Yet Gleason and his writers also managed to leave room -- in the form of what was perhaps a last, fond look back for all of them -- for newspapers and magazines to figure in people's lives in a major way, as in "On Stage," "Head of the House," and "A Matter of Life and Death." What's even more astonishing is that they did it all in an authentically lower-class/working-class New York setting with accurate, outer-borough dialects and phrases, while, in the process, presenting a last look at the ideal of the great American melting pot. Just as important, they successfully sold it as a hit series to the rest of the country. Even as Milton Berle's popularity declined and television audiences grew beyond the confines of major cities and the Northeast to places that were less accepting of his urban, Jewish, burlesque-derived humor, Gleason and company presented the most urban-focused, New York ethnic comedy this side of The Goldbergs and scored a hit with it for one glowing season. And contrary to popular belief, the series didn't die because of low ratings. The ratings were fine and CBS and the sponsors were happy, but Gleason pulled the plug when he realized that his writers could never equal those 39 scripts used in that golden season. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Here's Jackie Gleason at his finest as he plays the hilarious Ralph Kramden, the wacky and beloved bus driver. ~ All Movie Guide