Product Details

• Actors: Lenny Bruce
• Directors: John Magnuson
• Format: Color, Content/Copy-Protected CD, Dolby, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: KOCH VISION
• DVD Release Date: November 8, 2005
• Run Time: 72 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000AYNFWQ
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #59,970 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "The Lenny Bruce Performance Film" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Lenny Bruce is considered to this day to be America’s most controversial comedian. Having been arrested numerous times for obscenity over the course of his career, Lenny performed only in San Francisco during the last year of his life. Filmed live at the Basin Street West in San Francisco in 1965 in what would be his second-to-last live performance, Lenny directly addresses the accusations and allegations stemming from his multiple arrests for obscenity. This rare live performance also contains some of his famous stand-up bits including the prison riot with Dutch, the Warden, Father Flotski and Sabu, the prison doctor.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars a vision of a genius past his prime, July 6, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Performance Film [VHS] (VHS Tape)

While it is great to see Lenny Bruce at work in The Lenny Bruce Performance Film, it arouses deeply mixed feelings in the hearts of those who are familiar with his earlier work. The legal system had ruined him financially and his own bitterness was days away from finishing him as well. In the film we can see glimers of his earlier genius, presented for a small San Francisco club when years earlier he sold out a midnight show at Carnagie Hall (he had played to a packed house when there was a blizzard raging outside, no less). But this video is of interest to those getting to know Lenny because we get to hear his side of his legal problems first hand, and to older fans because we can see where he was right before his end. So check it out, but remember that he wasn't always that good. He used to be better.

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lenny Bruce In Action, October 2, 2005

By 

Thomas Degan "Tom Degan" (Goshen, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Lenny Bruce Performance Film (DVD)

For any Lenny Bruce fan, this film is absolutely essential. It is the only time in his all-too-brief career that Lenny's nightclub act was filmed from begining to end.

This is Lenny at the end of his life. It is August of 1965 and he has less than a year to live. The effects of four years of unrelenting persecution and personal self destruction are painfully evedent. He's not the Lenny of 1959: The hyper-energetic, brilliant young comic who burst apon the national consciousness with two riotous appearances on the Steve Allen Show. By the summer of 1965 it is obvious to even the most casual of viewers that Lenny Bruce is a broken, dying man.

And yet, even in this tragic condition, he is still screamingly funny. Some people have criticized his obsession with the American legal system during this period as ponderous and rambling. But when viewed within the context of historical hindsight and a knowledge of his own personal saga, Lenny's observations are fresh and eye opening.

A writer from Newsweek once refered to Lenny Bruce as "a sad, sick, self destructive genius of a dirty time". This film is an important document that records what it was that made him so unique.

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
[e-mail]

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't miss the Big Finish!, October 9, 2000

By 

Alan C. Baird "«9TimeZones.com» book coauthor... (Mesa Arizona US + Budapest Hungary EU) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Performance Film [VHS] (VHS Tape)

The best reason for buying this live concert video has been tucked away after the credits: "Thank You Mask Man" is director Jeff Hale's seven-minute animation of the voice track from one of Lenny's nightclub gigs. [Among classic cartoons, this one is right up there with "Bambi Meets Godzilla" (ASIN 6300229386).] In "The Essential Lenny Bruce" (ASIN 0333136160), our hero reflects on the significance of a masked man who avoids gratitude:

I always wonder about the anonymous giver. Cause the anonymous giver truly is the egomaniac: "I'm so GOOD--I'm not going to tell ANYbody." That's sick, man. I'm going to leave you with this, that the only anonymous giver is the guy that knocks up your daughter.