RIP Dom DeLuise

Legendary fat fuck comedian Dom DeLuise died on May 4th at the age of 75.  I use the term ‘legendary’ loosely.  It is doubtful that many people under the age of 35 have ever heard of the guy.  DeLuise belonged to a school of corpulent mugging that has gone in and out of favour since the earliest days of movie making.  From John Bunny and Fatty Arbuckle in the silent era to Eugene Pallette and WC Fields in the 1930s to more recent but far lesser would be funnymen like John Candy and the excruciating Chris Farley, obesity has been used to milk laughs in direct proportion to the artist’s cholesterol levels.

The Dom’s hey day was the 1970s and early 1980s.  His best work was done in collaboration with either the writer/director/ham Mel Brooks or the good ol’ boy and one time star Burt Reynolds.  His completely unsubtle, over the top mannerisms and physical schtick fitted in well to Brooks’ groundbreaking parodies of Hollywood genres and also, after a certain fashion, complemented Reynolds’ easy charm in a series of lame brain car racing flicks.

As there was always a lot of DeLuise a little of him could usually go a long way.  For this reason he is seen at his absolute best in what amounts to no more than a cameo in the western spoof “Blazing Saddles” (1974), playing an outrageously camp musical director on the set of a film interrupted by the cast of the main narrative.  DeLuise’s performance would be labelled homophobic by today’s politically sensitive standards but he takes his moment and runs with it, calling his chorus line “sissy Marys” and “faggots” as he mincingly demonstrates a dance and then suggesting that their lisp heavy delivery of a line reminds him of “steam escaping”.  Soon afterwards he is on the receiving end of a Slim Pickens hay-maker, a punch in the guts that follows the movie’s most openly self-reflexive line: “Piss on you.  I work for Mel Brooks”.  The collision of western and musical genres could not have been enacted more literally.

Later DeLuise roles for Brooks included another gay bashing part in “Silent Movie” (1976), where “fags!” is a recurring intertitle; a chubby Nero in “A History of the World, Part One” (1981) and an obvious bit of casting in the “Star Wars” rip off “Space Balls” (1987): Pizza the Hutt.

The films with Reynolds have dated badly.  I would imagine that a 21st century audience would be at best puzzled by Burt and Dom’s smug, self satisfied antics in the likes of the “Canonball Run” and the “Smokey and Bandit” sequel.  I retain a certain affection for DeLuise in “Canonball Run II” though as his character was the first I can recall ever saying - in either a movie or real life - that he would like to “get into” someone’s “pants”.  As a child this turn of phrase confused the hell out of me.  The logistics of a two hundred pound man trying to squeeze into Shirley MacLaine’s underwear wasn’t that amusing, but it’s stayed with me.