Product Details

• Actors: Steve Allen, Jerome Cowan, Jeff Donnell, Fritz Feld, Barbara Heller
• Format: Color, NTSC
• Rated: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Sony Pictures
• VHS Release Date: May 16, 2000
• Run Time: 96 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6302824591
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #165,503 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Share a nostalgic look at Hollywood's Golden Age. Dick Van Dyke will make you laugh and cry as The Comic, Carl Reiner's bittersweet tribute to the legendary silent funnymen. In the 1920s, Billy Bright (Van Dyke) rises to super-stardom making hilarious comedies with Cockeye (Mickey Rooney) and leading lady Mary Gibson (Michele Lee). The brash comic steals Mary away from their director (Cornel Wilde), only to lose her due to his philandering ways. With the coming of talkies, Hollywood loses its sense of humor for Billy's brand of physical comedy. Can he survive once the laughter has stopped? Featuring Van Dyke's masterful recreations of classic slapstick routines, The Comic is a funny, moving tale of life's pitfalls-and pratfalls!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Scenes that will stay with you forever, July 15, 2001

By 

"lebep" (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Comic [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I have read reviews of this film both here and on other movies sites and have never come across such a mixed bag of opinons! Everything from a misguided interpetation that it's based on the life of Buster Keaton (which it is not!) to a review here of scenes that will haunt you (which they will). I also saw this film in the 70's and have been lucky enough to catch it again 15 years ago.

Van Dyke and Rooney do it and do it well. Some of the best scenes are the Comics' later years. The closing scene you will never forget, it has haunted me since the first time I saw this movie.

For those of you who can buy it over there, get it, you won't regret it. Unfortunately it just isn't available down here. Believe me I have searched high and low for years.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Audio killed the silent screen star, July 16, 2001

By 

The Sanity Inspector (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Comic [VHS] (VHS Tape)

A memorable composite biopic about a silent film comedy star who has trouble handling success, and then falls afoul of the advent of sound. The film quotes scenes from other famous movies. For example, the main character voices-over his own funeral, a la _Sunset Boulevard_. But it is a memorable production for its own sake. We follow the comic from success straining his marriage, to his star on the wane, to attempts at a comeback, until we leave him as a pathetic wreck, old and full of regrets, watching one of his old films on late night TV. Affecting stuff...

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Huantingly Memorable", February 18, 1999

By 

Steve Hook ([e-mail]) (Gold Beach,Oregon) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Comic [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I saw this film back in the 70's and i could not get it out of my mind. Without a doubt the best work Van Dyke has done. He and Reiner sculpt a film of unforgettable honesty & humor. This is a soft spoken study of humanity. I'd compare "The Comic" to "Chaplin" but for me more memorable in it's simplicity. About a silent film star forgotten with the years "The Comic" also creeps into film history "silently" as a Classic.