Forgotten Gems of the 60s: Bye Bye Braverman

By the mid 1960s, Sidney Lumet had already established himself as a director of hard-hitting social dramas (12 Angry Men, The Pawnbroker, Fail-Safe), but had never really tried his hand at comedy. 1968's Bye Bye Braverman, a critical and commercial flop, changed all that. A rare film that eluded me for years (it never even found its way to VHS), I was admittedly head-over-heels when I located a Telecine DVD copy on the grey market. Based on Wallace Markfield's cynical novel To an Early Grave, Bye Bye Braverman is one of the most New York City-specific films I've come across — where Manhattan neighborhoods are used to draw subtle distinctions between four nearly identical characters, and where a working knowledge of Brooklyn is virtually a requirement to fully appreciate the film. It also happens to be the most Jewish of New York comedies, to the extent that it makes Woody Allen look like a sheygets. As the film opens, we learn that the titular Braverman has died at the untimely age of forty-one. In the course of a single day, his four oldest friends will meet and embark on an exodus to Brooklyn to attend his funeral. Braverman and his four comrades are all left-leaning intellectuals, though each is slightly past his prime: there's PR man Morroe Rieff (George Siegel), whose first reaction on hearing the news is that Braverman owed him money, East Village poet Barnet Weinstein (Jack Warden), critic and professor of pop-culture Holly Levine (Sorrell Booke), whose latest course is "From Little Nemo to Lil' Abner", and diehard socialist Felix Ottensteen (Joseph Wiseman), who (among other things) lectures on Philip Roth to the Hadassah ladies. Rounding out the cast is Zohra Lampert as Morroe's Stalin-obsessed wife, Jessica Walter (Lucille Bluth from Arrested Development, pictured above) as Braverman's neurotic widow Inez, and Godfrey Cambridge as a taxi driver who just happens to be a converted Jew. Though intellectuals to the core, you wouldn't guess it by outward appearances — these four are schlubs, though loveable. Holly, who Morroe describes as looking like an avant-garde Yul Brynner, is the self-satisfied boaster of the gang ("my piece on John Ford has been twice anthologized!"), yet he's more George Costanza than George S. Kaufman. (Hard to believe this same actor would go on to play Boss Hogg in The Dukes of Hazzard.) He's also the only one with a car, and it's in his cherry red VW Beetle that the four will become a lost tribe of sorts as they unsuccessfully navigate their way through Brooklyn in search of Braverman's funeral. Lumet's travelogue through New York's most populous borough is perhaps a bit self-indulgent, and many might feel the endless shots of brownstones, bodegas, Hasidim, churches, temples and Flatbush Avenue landmarks last longer than necessary, but they serve as a bit of a breather between longer set pieces, including a wonderful philosophical exchange with a cab driver (Godfrey Cambridge) they accidentally collide with. Jokes about death, a staple in Jewish comedy (cf. Woody Allen, Philip Roth), appear throughout the film — the men compare dying young to walking out on a Hitchcock movie in the middle, and Siegel has several waking fantasies about how insignificant his own death will be. A lengthy monologue set amongst a sea of headstones in a non-descript Brooklyn cemetery belongs on any list of great cinematic moments, and the writing brilliantly captures the zeitgeist of the era. The film also pokes fun at reformed Judaism, particularly in the funeral scene with comedian Alan King as a rabbi delivering an epic sermon that says absolutely nothing. He's the embodiment of the type of rabbi that Lenny Bruce called "so reform they're ashamed of being Jewish". More a meditation on friendship and death than a traditional comic escapade, Herb Sargent's screenplay is sharp and uncompromising, with dialog that files fast and furious. Made on a shoestring budget, Lumet's direction does seem less assured than usual — as if he doesn't know what to do with camera during the longer segments — though it in no way diminishes the film's strengths. With an abundance of nostalgia-inducing Manhattan and Brooklyn location scenes, Bye Bye Braverman is a truly unique comedy that you don't have to be a New Yorker to love (but it couldn't hurt.)

Comments

[downtowngirl]

sometimes you are a genius. double w/hot rock i think.

[Jim Flannery]

Double with Husbands, surely. :-)

[downtowngirl]

me, natalie.

[oh-man]

ive been trying to see this movie for ages. the novel "to an early grave" is incredible.

[Filmbrain]

oh-man:

It's been years since I read the book. Perhaps you can help with something -- if I recall correctly, the book is entirely in the first person, from Morroe's perspective. Is that right, or am I confusing it with another novel?

[Jay]

God bless you for finding and writing about these gems, Mr Filmbrain.

[oh-man]

re: narration.

the book is in the third-person though morroe is clearly the main protagonist and the book is filtered largely through his experience. so i can easily see how a recollection of the book read long ago might have one remembering it as a first person narration. teitlebaum's window, markfield's second novel, covers about every kind of prose around and is equally funny and heartbreaking (and has also been republished by dalkey archive). after years of searching i found his long out of print third novel, you could live if they let you, about a lenny bruce-ish standup but the satisfaction of a years long search has been joy enough for now and haven't read it yet. also, its reputation isn't as good so maybe im avoiding dissapointment. though i do know of the scene where the comic character is speaking to a group of jewish women and tells them "ladies, never be ashamed that you're jewish. it's enough that i'm ashamed you're jewish." seems promsing...

[Faux Hulot]

Wow! I've been trying to find a copy of this ever since I saw it on TV sometime in the 90s. Can anyone PLEASE tell me where I can get a copy of this DVD? Thanks!

[Filmbrain]

Bootleg copies can be found on EBay from time to time, or so I'm told.

[Faux Hulot]

Ha ha ha! You slay me, Filmbrain...

[Peckerman]

Was there a pretty woman in this movie? I recall the older jewish guys traipsing about the city, but I think there was a good looking woman (jewish even, if that's possible), in the movie. Can you confirm?

[Peterman]

Oy, what a movie! Why cant we get copies. We are willing to pay. Who has copies we can see?

[joseph]

i have just purchased a copy of this film on dvd. it is available from www.jdvds1994.net/ , havent watched it yet so im not sure of the quality but the movie is available .

[Jules Posten]

there is a question that has been driving me meshugga ever since i first watched this film. when George Segal first meets Jack Warden in Greenwhich Village, so they can tie up with the other two Braverman mourners, they are by a Hot Dog Wagon, which they decide to patronize. the man waiting in line before them ordering a hot dog, i could swear is a very young Woody Allen. i have been asking this question for over twenty years. Woody Allen was first starting his film career just about the time of this film. both he and Sidney Lumet made many films using New York City as a background. the two of them were friends, was there a Woody Allen unbilled cameo in Braverman? does anyone know?

by the way, during the Braverman credits, the friends are shown waiting in line at the Greenwich Theater, one of my favorite places in my much younger days. excellent foriegn films as well as interesting double features of older domestic films. where are the snows of yesteryear?

[George]

This is one of my Favorite Films, and it is soooo New York & Jewish, I understand why it didn't do well! I finally managed to get the novel and read it a couple of years ago, and that too is very NY, but I think the movie is better. Hopefully, one day, Mr. Lumet can be convinced to release this movie on DVD so we can all have a good laugh again.