Lenny Bruce - Swear to Tell the Truth (1998)

Lenny Bruce - Swear to Tell the Truth (1998)

Lenny Bruce was easily the most controversial stand-up comic of his generation. Tackling subjects that were not common fodder for humorists in the mid-1950's -- religious hypocrisy, the power of forbidden language, sexual obsessions and hang-ups, racism, drugs and the absurdity of the American cultural landscape -- Bruce created hilarious but cutting satire that made many people laugh, but also made many people angry. Lenny Bruce: Swear to Tell the Truth is a documentary about Bruce's life and career that follows him from his early days as a clean if eccentric stand-up performer (including a rare clip from his appearance on Arthur Godfrey's TV show) through his eventual "liberation," performing edgier material (with looser language) at strip joints and jazz clubs, and his many legal battles over obscenity and drugs that made him all but unemployable in the last few years before his death in 1966. Lenny Bruce: I Swear to Tell the Truth includes film clips of Bruce on stage and on television (including highlights from an unaired appearance on The Steve Allen Show), interviews with his friends and family (including his mother, Sally Marr, and his wife Honey) as well as his lawyers and the prosecutors who fought against him, home movies and excerpts from the amusingly sleazy B movie he wrote and starred in, Dance Hall Racket.

Twelve years in the making, this Oscar-nominated, Emmy-winning documentary, narrated by Robert De Niro, chronicles the life of the unorthodox American stand-up comedian who was no stranger to controversy. By the early 1950's, Bruce shared the stage with local strippers and ended up marrying one. By the late 50's he had perfected a jazzy improvisational delivery that led to TV dates with hosts Steve Allen and Hugh Hefner.

By the early 60's, his sold-out club dates were cracking up audiences from coast to coast, taking a hipster's aim at conventionality and hypocrisy -- and the Catholic Church, arguably the reason prosecutors now felt compelled to repeatedly arrest him for obscenity and narcotics possession. With humor and pathos, director Robert B. Weide profiles this provocative social comic and features rare, unaired TV appearances, newsreel and home movie footage, and interviews with Bruce's mother, wife, daughter, lawyers, club owners, friends and prosecutors.

New York Post: "The documentary is exceptionally powerful. The story is about much more than just a comic. It is about the way society treats non-conformists who threaten established values, the need to be vigilant about constitutional rights, and much more."

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Lenny Bruce Comedy Pack (Audio) - http://tracker.concen.org/torrents-details.php?id=14820

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