No one has been more important in the evolution of American comedy than Carl Reiner, who has died at age 98. Reiner was a writer and performer on Sid Caesar’s seminal Your Show of Shows. He created one of the greatest and most influential TV sitcoms, The Dick Van Dyke Show. Reiner was the comedy partner who helped Mel Brooks form his work. And he directed four Steve Martin comedies. Reiner was the third person awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.
Active to the end, Reiner was playing Saul Bloom in the Ocean’s 11 franchise into his late eighties and voiced Carl Reineroceros in last year’s Toy Story 4. In recent years, he also Tweeted some pointed and wickedly funny anti-Trump video commentaries.
Reiner starred in one of my favorite movie comedies – the still timely satire on the Duck and Cover Era, the 1966 The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!. At the height of the Cold War, a Soviet nuclear submarine runs aground and is trapped just off a tiny New England coastal village, and the crew sends a party ashore to heist a boat. The landing party encounters a vacationing American family and the two groups must work together to find a solution to help the sub escape without igniting World War III.
The superb cast includes Carl Reiner, Eva Marie Saint, Jonathan Winters and Alan Arkin in his breakthrough performance. Although it primarily satirizes the paranoia of the Cold War, there are plenty of laughs sparked by small town New England, family dynamics, teen love and the recurring joke of the town drunk with his reluctant horse.
The message that demonizing “Others” leads to no good, especially resonates in this moment of American and human history.
I rewatch The Russians Are Coming! every other year or so, and it still holds up. Besides showing regularly on Turner Classic Movies, The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! is also available streaming from Amazon and Vudu (and on DVD from Netflix).