Will DiGravio
Decades from now, or perhaps even at this very moment, the way someone will most likely encounter the genius of Bob Newhart is through the movies. Every December, millions of viewers watch him as Papa Elf, the adoptive father of Will Ferrell’s Buddy in Elf (2003). Perhaps after admiring his deadpan, one might even say “stammering” delivery, a fan may wonder what else the aged elf was up to in his life and click over to Wikipedia. There, they will learn of the comedy albums, including his debut record, The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart (the first to take home the top prize at the Grammys), and a pair of eponymous, groundbreaking sitcoms.
Following the success of that first album, but before the sitcoms, Newhart began a modest movie career, not unlike his best friend, Don Rickles. But unlike Rickles, who trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Newhart sidestepped into stardom. He began in advertising, writing copy and then later jokes that eventually landed him on the radio in Chicago. He and a pal would make fake phone calls with each other, leading to the premise for what became The Button-Down Mind. No wonder the men of Sterling Cooper so enjoy the album on Mad Men — perhaps Newhart represented the adman’s innermost dream.
Newhart came to Hollywood at the tail end of the Golden Age. Then, stars had their trademarks—physical features like “Bette Davis eyes” and the blue ones of Frank Sintra, or props, like the cigars of Grouch Marx and Charlie Chaplin’s cane. Thus, when Newhart made his debut movie performance, in Don Siegel’s Hell is for Heroes (1962), it was only natural that he be paired with an object audiences would immediately associate with him: the telephone.
Newhart plays Private First Class James E. Driscoll, a typist who accidentally becomes attached to a platoon of men besieged by the Nazis. He is the meek contrast to the tough guys played by Steve McQueen and James Coburn. The singer Bobby Darin plays a crafty private, who, in a great scene, teaches Driscoll how to fire a gun. He later gives Driscoll an important assignment: send fake radio messages to command so as to trick the enemy. “Broadcast anything that comes into your head,” Darin’s character says. The nervous Driscoll gets to work, performing as if he were the real Newhart. He falsely reports that morale is low amongst the men due to the evening movie. “I’ve had to show Road to Morocco five times in a row, sir,” he says in a call to no one. “The men are getting a bir surly, sir. They know all the lines.” It is one of those performances that immediately brings a smile to the face, especially when one imagines how audiences from the time must have responded to the scene on the heels of his comedy albums.
Apart from a role in Hot Millions (1968), a caper story directed by Eric Till and starring Peter Ustinov, Maggie Smith, Karl Malden, Robert Morley, and Cesar Romero, Newhart would not appear in a film again until 1970. That year, he played Dr. Mason Hume in Vincente Minnelli’s stunning adaptation of Alan Jay Lerner’s musical, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1970). Barbra Streisand, just two years into her film career, plays Daisy Gamble, a clairvoyant chain smoker who receives psychoanalytic therapy to end her addiction. When Dr. Marc Chabot (Yves Montand) places her under hypnosis, it is revealed that she is, in fact, the reincarnation of a 19th century woman with whom he falls in love. Daisy, in turn, falls for Marc, making for an unconventional love triangle. Newhart plays the head of the psychiatry school, who steps in to stop the sessions after Marc’s belief in reincarnation makes its way into newspaper headlines. The only colleague who supports Marc is Dr. Conrad Fuller, played by Simon Oakland, the man who a decade earlier diagnosed Norman Bates at the end of Psycho.
There is an obvious irony to Newhart’s role in On a Clear Day You Can See Forever. Just two years later, he would play a psychiatrist on The Bob Newhart Show, the first of two television series found on most any list of essential, groundbreaking sitcoms. Then there is the plot twist at the end of his second show, Newhart, in which (spoiler alert) he wakes up as the character from the first show to reveal that the second was all a dream—a reincarnation-esqe twist. Similarities aside, his minor role reveals yet another aspect of his unique star image. Newhart was as cerebral a comedian as any of the celebrated satirists, but also carried with him a certain folksiness that made his intellectualism more palatable. Call it Midwestern charm, or whatever you like, but it is central to his persona and, by all accounts, indicative of the kind of man he was. “Bob’s a brainy type of comedian,” Rickles once said, “and I’m the type of guy who gets laughs.”
Over the next decade, Newhart made appearances in a trio of star-studded films: Mike Nichols’ adaptation of Catch-22 (1970); Norman Lear’s Dick Van Dyke-headed comedy, Cold Turkey (1971); and playing opposite Walter Matthau, Julie Andrews, and Tony Curtis in Little Miss Marker (1980), a remake of the 1934 film starring Shirley Temple. But it was in that same year that Newhart received top billing for the first and last time, as President Manfred Link in Buck Henry’s First Family. Madeline Khan plays the unnamed first lady and Gilda Radner is their daughter, Gloria.
The big joke in the film is that Gloria is a virgin, unpermitted, despite her age, to have a relationship until her father leaves office. Link, with help from Ambassador Spender (Roger Corman), works to secure a partnership with the small, fictional African nation of Upper Gorm, headed by President Mazai Kalundra (John Hancock). While on a diplomatic mission there, Link discovers an agricultural secret that will not only secure his re-election, but his place above all other presidents in American history.
Despite a Who’s Who of 70s and 80s comedy stars, First Family doesn’t totally work as a film. There are some funny moments, especially when Henry pokes fun at the rituals of the United States. But the jokes about Gloria feel forced, especially when coupled with tired tropes about “sacrifices” and “virgins” in African nations. Some of the better jokes come when Kalundra capitalizes on the racism of his American counterparts. This is clearly Henry’s aim, but too many of the barbs aimed at the fictional African nation play as punching down.
For his part, Newhart gives the film’s best performance. In an essay published shortly after he died, Matt Zoller Seitz wrote of Newhart as a singular comedy team, simultaneously playing both the funny and straight man in his act. We see that in First Family, where he is the dumbest smart guy and/or the smartest dumb guy. Though not the crazed politician played by Mel Brooks in Blazing Saddles, for example, Link is smart enough to see the potential of an agricultural boom brought on by a partnership with Upper Gorm, but dumb enough to dress as George Washington when he dines at a state dinner. He has the look and delivery of an intellectual, but also a nonsensical energy and wisdom. The brainy/non-brainy type.
Newhart did very little for the silver screen in the following decades—he had to settle for dominating that other medium of television. But in his movie performances, one sees what made him so universally beloved by audiences, including the generation of Elf and later his Emmy-winning guest spots on The Big Bang Theory. He was an intellectual who could laugh at himself, who turned spending time with the brainy type into a real joy.
