I remember my mom pointing out an old man sitting on a park bench in Santa Monica in the early 60's and telling me, "that's half of Laurel & Hardy sitting over there." Being 6 or so, I didn't appreciate the brush with destiny, but I heard Dick Van Dyke did. Mr. Laurel was actually listed in the Santa Monica phone book. Anyhow, this imperfect movie is an homage of sorts to Stan, with nods to Keaton and Langdon (I omit the litigious Harold Lloyd since he was still alive at the time), made during Mr. Van Dyke's late & post-TV series movie heyday. There was a 6-year period there where he had his run of Hollywood. To his credit, he started out with a bang (Bye-Bye Birdie then Mary Poppins) and defied being pigeon-holed, choosing projects he felt strongly about. Unfortunately Van Dyke's tastes didn't jive with the public's at the time. The problem is, excluding those early hits, none of his later films are really all that good (see Fitzwilly or Cold Turkey) and are barely remembered today. At least The Comic is his most personal. Like many "period" films made in the 1960's (women's hair styles in Doctor Zhivago or practically everything about Harlow and The Carpetbaggers) it feels false. D.V-D. tries to morph personality elements of those real silent stars into one unsatisfying tragic composite character. James Coco did a better job as a thinly veiled Langdon a few years later in the also-flawed The Big Party. The best that can be said about The Comic is that it makes W.C. Fields and Me seem strangely watchable by comparison. Mr. Van Dyke, your medium is television and you reigned there and you had few equals.
