"Wisecracks" WMNF-FM The Women's Show October 31, 1992 By Linda Lopez McAlister All right, this week there's one at the Tampa Theater that I thoroughly enjoyed and I think all you feminists out there will get a kick out of as well. It's called "Wisecracks" and it's a terrific documentary about women comics, comediens, and comic actors. (If you see the film you'll hear Phyllis Diller explain the difference between the three categories). "Wisecracks" was made by Canadian feminist filmmaker Gail Singer and the mode of filmmaking is straight documentary--talking heads and film clips of performances--but oh my what talking heads they are, and what insight they bring to the question of what it's like to be a woman in what has always been very much a man's field. And what film clips they are--literally hundreds of them of funny women doing their skits, their performances, their stand-up schtick--not only contemporary women comics active today on the tv and comedy club circuit but also some priceless archival footage of such early 20th C. women in the field as Louise Fazenda, Marie Dressler, Sophie Tucker, Bea Lillie, Fanny Brice, Mae West, and Sophie Tucker. Then there are clips of the great ones I remember from the films, radio, and tv of my youth: Gracie Allen, Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett, Cass Daley, Phyllis Diller, Betty Hutton, Eve Arden, Joan Davis, Molly Goldberg, Martha Raye, and Marie Wilson. (Watch for the outtake from some '40s movie of fluffed lines and ad libs by Eve Arden at the expense of her leading man: Ronald Reagan--he was easy to make the butt of a joke even then). The clips of these performers and a huge list of some of today's best women comics are strung together by a series of questions, more implied than directly asked, that the women respond to about various aspects of what it is like to be a woman in the comedy business. Some, like Whoppi Goldberg and Ellen De Generes say that they basically ignore the fact that they are women and don't deal with it. Others such as Jenny LeCoat and Sandra Shamas go just the opposite direction and use their experiences as a woman as the basis of their material, pitching their material to a female audience or to females in a mixed audience. And clearly most of these comics are far more appealing to women than to men because their material comes from their own experiences as women. I happened to see this film at a press screening for film reviewers--most of whom are men. I and the woman who went with me to the screening were almost the only people in the theater laughing at most of the stuff; we often found ourselves hooting raucously into the dead silence around us. Of course many of the jokes do poke fun at men's foibles--like the one that opens the film. Pam Stone tells the story about the man who can't decide which woman to marry so he gives each of three women $5,000 to find out what they would do with it. The first one buys herself clothes and makeup and a new hairdo, all to make herself more attractive for him. The second one buys a wonderful t.v. and stereo setup because she knows he likes such things. The third woman takes the $5,000 and invests it and turns it into $10,000, so he'll know she's thinking about their future together. So which one does he decide to marry? The one with the big tits, of course. Besides performing their comedy for us in this film a number of the women talk seriously about their experiences as women comics and of the many sequences of this sort I found Phyllis Diller's remarks particularly intelligent and serious (while her comedy clips were also particularly funny). Many of these performers will be familiar to you--how many depends on how much time you spend watching the comedy shows that now aboud on t.v. Among the ones I already knew were: the Clichettes, Maxine Lapiduss, Paula Poundstone, Robin Tyler, and Kim Wayans. Some who were new to me were Geri Jewell, a stand- up comic with cerebral palsy, Joanne Astrow, Joy Behar, Emily Levine, Carrie Show, Pam Stone, Deborah Theaker, and Lotus Weinstock. Gail Singer, the director of this film, is the first filmmaker to have both a documentary ("Wisecracks") and a feature film (the semi-autobiographical "True Confections") entered in the Toronto Film Festival the same year (1991). She's self-taught as a filmmaker and her previous credits include "Loved, Honoured and Bruised" about abused women and "Abortion Stories: From North and South." She currently holds the Distinguished Chair in Canadian Culture at the University of Toronto. It will probably be no surprise to you, then, to learn that this film was made under the auspices of the National Film Board of Canada -- which has probably produced more feminist films than any other organization in the world, so we should support them. Have a good time this week--go see "Wisecracks" playing at the Tampa Theater through Thursday.