Enter Laughing

Directed by Carl Reiner, Enter Laughing follows Reni Santoni’s David Kolowitz as he attempts to balance his job and various relationships after landing a role in a low-rent off-Broadway play. Filmmaker Reiner, making his debut here, delivers a mostly underwhelming comedy that suffers from a hopelessly (and aggressively) padded-out feel, as the movie, which runs a palpably overlong 112 minutes, boasts a midsection consisting of one sluggish, unfunny comedic set-piece after another (eg David attempts to buy a tuxedo, David disastrously runs through the play for the first time, etc, etc) – with the pronounced lack of laughs ensuring that such interludes are hardly able to make the knee-slapping impact Reiner is obviously aiming for. It’s clear, then, that Enter Laughing‘s tolerable atmosphere is due almost entirely to the superb efforts of an eclectic cast, with Santoni’s appealing, personable turn as the affable protagonist matched by a top-notch roster of such periphery players as Jose Ferrer, Shelley Winters, and Jack Gilford. And although the picture admittedly does boast a small handful of effective sequences, including a climactic performance that fares relatively (and comparatively) well, Enter Laughing is, for the bulk of its runtime, an egregiously hit-and-miss effort from a filmmaker who would eventually go on to much, much better things.

** out of ****