For Madmen Only is a fascinating look at the cult comedy star Del Close, who never became a household name, but whose radical influence on comedians everywhere is still being felt.
Among the students whom he taught his “for madmen only” brand of improv were John Belushi, John Candy, Harold Ramis, Tina Fey, Bill Murray, Mike Myers, Amy Poehler and far too many names to list here.
Del often seemed on the verge of success, but his star pupils who most embraced his manic, no-holds-barred “walking the tightrope” approach like Belushi left for Saturday Night Live and the movies, leaving Del to start over again.
Before that, Close was briefly the comedy and romantic partner of future writer-director Elaine May. Together, they came up with the Winchester Kitchen Table Rules of Improvisation. But he was squeezed out of the picture when she met Mike Nichols.
Nichols went on to direct Oscar-winning films The Graduate and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, while Close taught classes in a series of basements and was kicked out of various comedy groups he helped found.
Writer-director Heather Ross has assembled many of his former pupils, none of whom hold back about the fact that Close truly was off his rocker, including Wendt, who pauses after saying, “Del would self-destruct or OD or disappear all the time.. .. Wait, everyone’s ratting him out, right?”
And yes, everyone brings their best Del stories, which are legendary.
Mike Gold, his editor at DC comics, says, “Well, he was insane. I like that. Insane people come up with great stories. They go places nobody’s ever been before.” Close’s unique brand of lunacy not only influenced just about every comedian from the ‘70s on, but was captured in the surreal DC comic series Wasteland. The anthology series ran from 1987-1989.
The film uses the comic panels as both an aesthetic – with frequent zooms into the printed dots or thought bubbles — and as a framework for Del’s life, which was fueled by drugs of all kinds.
The less fascinating parts of the film are the reenactments of his writing brainstorming sessions for Wasteland. In these, Close is played by James Urbaniak, wearing the same “terror is freedom” T-shirt scene in grainy taped footage of ‘70s and ‘80s sessions.
One of the highlights of the film is when Bob Odenkirk — who, thankfully, is still with us — remembers meeting Del in 1981 when he was still in college. Having interviewed one of the saner founders at Second City, young Bob was convinced he didn’t have what it took to follow in the footsteps of comic geniuses like Belushi. But then he bumped into Del Close, who had just quit hard drugs. Odenkirk figured that if Del could do the things he did while whacked out on heroin or cocaine, maybe he had a shot if tried it sober.
It would be to make up a life as wild as Close’s: His father’s dramatic suicide, an apprenticeship as a fire eater, his love of witchcraft, and his epic freakouts.
Eventually, he found a stable comedy partner in Charna Halpern, who helped him perfect “the Harold,” a teachable version of the long-form improv he’d been working on for decades. It proved improv was here to stay and could be passed on.
While Close was occasionally on camera himself — most memorably as the English teacher in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and the deranged Reverend Meeker in the 1988 remake of The Blob — his cinematic legacy is the generations of comics he’d shaped.
Rating 3.5 out of 5
* * * * *
Produced by Jennifer Pike, Adam Samuel Goldman, Helen Hood Scheer
Written by Adam Samuel Goldman and Heather Ross
Directed by Heather Ross
Featuring Charna Halpern, Adam McKay, Jason Mantzoukas, Tim Meadows, Bob Odenkirk,
Patton Oswalt, Dave Thomas, Jason Sudeikis, James Urbaniak, George Wendt
