Some of you will remember the review of Love Gilda from early September. This documentary about Gilda Radnor was released on a limited basis later that month but not many people saw it. Like RBG, this documentary was partially funded by CNN so it gets first crack at airing it. Look for it on New Years Day.
Love, Gilda (Gilda Radner) – For Baby Boomers, the golden age of Saturday Night Live came at the beginning with the Not Ready for Prime Time Players. I’ll bet 90 percent of those reading this can name all of them. And almost all of you will say that Garrett Morris and Laraine Newman were the two who did very little afterwards. And everyone remembers the short but meteoric career of John Belushi, who died of an overdose. Chevy Chase, who only appeared on the show in its first year, became a mega-movie star. Dan Aykroyd became the most versatile actor of the group. No one will forget his spoof of Julia Child, the commercial for the Bass-o-matic, and his Jack Kirkpatrick Point/Counterpoint with Jane Curtin, that “ignorant slut.”
But my favorite … and I wasn’t alone … was Gilda Radner, that whirlwind of comedy madness whose Roseanna Roseannadanna, Bawbwa Waawa, Emily Litella, Lisa Loopner and so many more. Unabashedly bold and un-self-conscious, she smashed the TV screen and made us laugh till our cheek muscles hurt. That’s the Gilda we thought we knew.
Love, Gilda is a funny, sad, and revealing documentary four years in the making. Lisa Dapolito never met Gilda but she felt compelled to make this film. Despite being told that no young people today would know who Gilda was, she hustled for the bucks to get the movie made. And thanks to Magnolia Pictures, the distributor of RBG, and CNN Films, which serves as its broadcast partner (it will air in 2019), Love, Gilda was made.
It is must-see viewing. I almost passed out watching it I was laughing so hard. The revelation here comes in low-quality video from Gilda’s days in Toronto and Chicago at Second City. Watching her work with Bill Murray, Brian Doyle-Murray, Paul Shaffer, John Candy, Eugene Levy, and Martin Short (among others) in those pre-TV days will leave you speechless. It turns out Gilda dated almost all of them. She was also popular in college at the University of Michigan where she discovered she could major in being funny (in theater).
Her formative years as a rich, chubby kid are chronicled in home movies. Always wanting to perform, Gilda was destined for stardom. But as so many comedians, not all was happy in Gilda’s personal life. An eating disorder came first; ovarian cancer came later. Her marriage to G.E. Smith didn’t work; her marriage to Gene Wilder did.
This is a deep dive into one of the pioneers of comedy. She served as a role model for many funny women. Interviewees include Amy Poehler, Melissa McCarthy, and Maya Rudolph. From the old days, Marty Short, Chevy Chase, Paul Shaffer and Laraine Newman provide commentary.
Most hauntingly, we hear Gilda herself narrating much of the film through tapes she made around the release of her best-selling autobiography, It’s Always Something.
The film opens on only 51 screens late in September so you will have to look hard to find it in art houses. It is well worth the search and the time.