Gleason

The movie checks in on Gleason's career at a few points and we see that he started out not very good and got better. But we never see how he managed to get better. He seems never to hear criticism, but only to insist that he knows what he's doing.

And where did they get his stand-up material? It sounds like Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, or at best Jack E. Leonard. Was Gleason an insult comic? I don't remember him that way. The material sounds anachronistic to me. Certainly an anachronism is Gleason shouting out "How sweet it is!" on his Stage Show program. He didn't say that until his big TV comeback.

Maybe the comeback would have been a better story to focus on. How Gleason was reduced to taking work as a game-show host, the game show flopped, and he saved the day with a one-man show that in half an hour returned him to the top of the profession.

Might have been better than trying even briefly to recreate the Honeymooners. Everyone did fine, considering. Michael Chieffo was near-perfect as Art Carney, Kristen Dalton was a competent Audrey Meadows though she forgot to stop sounding so aristocratic when Meadows was playing Alice. But the only thing that can possibly stand out in such a recreation is the imperfections. Hey, the chest of drawers is too low.

Brad Garrett did the voice reasonably well, but it was odd seeing him walking down a corridor hunched down to conceal the difference between himself and his average-sized companions. According to the papers, he had wanted very much to do the role. Okay, Brad, it was a fine salute and if they couldn't find a six-foot-four Audrey Meadows to play against you, that's not anybody's fault.