In the mid to late 1970s, Steve Martin was the most popular comic in the United States, but that Wild and Crazy Guy thing had kind of run its course — and he knew it. After all, there’s only so much of a certain act you can milk before the audience starts to sour on it. Most comics know this and tend to revise their routines in phases, often road-testing material in front of smaller crowds before going prime time with it. But Steve Martin’s act wasn’t really one where he could reinvent himself by ditching the kind of no-punchline punchline non-sequitur comic that people had come to expect.
So, what do you do when you’ve grown tired of the arrow-through-the-head Steve Martin and transition into film? Well, you make a transition film called “The Jerk,” make millions, and then think “Hey, I think this movie thing is pretty easy…and easy money.” As readers will soon find out in Martin’s often funny, but kind of materially light book “Number One is Walking,” being a film actor is not an easy gig. What may look good on paper (or as an idea), might not get butts in seats on movie night. And so it went with Martin’s post-“Jerk” films. “Pennies from Heaven,” “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid,” “The Man with Two Brains,” and “The Lonely Guy” all underperformed at the box office. Though, I have to admit, that while I really loved “The Man with Two Brains,” the other films were kind of head-scratchers. It wasn’t until “All of Me” that Martin seemed to hit his stride. Indeed, that film was the start of a more solid movie career. Sure, there were some duds, but that’s to be expected when you make 40 films.
For those who don’t know, “Number One is Walking” is a term used by assistant directors to notify the director and the crew that the lead actor (“number one”) is making his or her way to the set. Of course, the joke became that Steve soon went from number one to two and three on the call sheet as his roles moved from lead to supporting actor. Still, it’s not like he hit rock bottom in his film career, but many of the early films in his career did chip away at his confidence. It didn’t help that even his mom noted that his movies weren’t doing Boffo at the Box Office.
Indeed, if a theme runs through this book by a former stand-up comic (yes, it’s a comic book), it’s the insecurity that comes with being an actor. Steve often compares himself with his fellow performers and wonders why on earth he is able to get film jobs. Almost every film gets the “Analytical Steve” treatment at screenings where he sits at the back of the movie theater and takes notes on how the audience is reacting to the jokes or where the movie feels dead. It’s not like he’ll be able to change the movie — after all, he’s not the director. However, it seems Steve is taking notes in order to get better at his craft — which, he admits, is not all that easy.
There are some genuine laughs in the book, but also some lessons for those aspiring to be in the movie business. One is that it takes about a decade to know if your film is any good. The other is when adapting a story for a movie, “follow the course of a failed marriage: fidelity, transgression, divorce.” Stay true to the story, stray a bit from the plot here and there, and then finally make a hard break from the original story and do your own thing. It seemed to work for Martin when adapting Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand into the film “Roxanne” — even though he had a difficult time getting a studio head to greenlight the film and a screenwriter to adapt it. Taking a stab at adapting the story into an updated version was the right move for Steve. He won an award for this screenplay and the movie did well at the box office.
Smaller, but no-less-memorable roles in movies like “Little Shop of Horrors” were more in line with “Classic Steve” from the stand-up era. He played a sadistic dentist to Bill Murray’s pain freak. Indeed, one of the funniest panels Harry Bliss illustrates is where Murray had the crew in stitches for this improv moment:
Where the book starts to lose steam is when Martin teams up with Martin Short for their comedy duo act and the start of their successful series, “Only Murders in the Building.” He barely touches on those third acts in his career (which is perplexing), opting instead to fill the rest of the book with his “And Other Diversions” material. That material turns out to be half a book full of Bliss’s illustrations and Martin’s captions. Some are pretty funny, while others are just so-so. I suppose what made me disappointed in that second half was that the “Diversions” felt like filler. For a $30.00 book, that’s a whole lotta filler for not a lot of value.
