Those among us tired of the summer glut of big-budget franchises flooding (and mostly bombing) in theatres across LA, might well went to spend a nostalgic ninety minutes basking in the glory that was entertainment “way back when”. We are talking about the days of the legendary Borscht Belt, aka the Catskill Mountains in Upstate New York. The hundreds of hotels and bungalow colonies were the fertile breeding ground of most of the legends of comedy, among them, Woody Allen Sid Caesar, Milton Berle, Red Buttons, Robert Klein, Henny Youngman, Totie Fields, Mel Brooks, Danny Kaye, Mort Sahl and the iconic Lenny Bruce. Whew!! And this is only a partial listing of the comic geniuses on display in the documentary When Comedy Went to School which is coming to local Laemmle Theatres on August 16th.
With Robert Klein sharing the narration with Jerry Lewis, we are transported back to the golden age when Americans were not glued to TV sets, or nowadays to their MacBooks, IPhones, Tablets and Kindles. Like stars in some light-years away burned-out galaxy, vintage film clips show guests enjoying their stays at hotels like Grossingers, the Concord, Kutschers, Youngs Gap and Browns, where the food and fun was plentiful and non-stop, and young comics had a chance to prove themselves every night of the week from Memorial Day through Labor Day.
Comedy was live and it is hard to think of a sit-com from the last 60 years of television that does not owe its writing and performing talent to the comedians who learned their craft in the now, sadly, mostly vanished world portrayed in this entertaining film.
