Tears of a Clown Blogathon: Eddie Murphy in Dreamgirls

A few weeks ago, I announced the Tears of a Clown Blogathon. If you take a look up at my handy-dandy ticker, you'll see that the deadline to enter has already passed. Yet, here we are. Thanks to all of you that have already posted an entry. I'll close this out by the weekend with a posted acknowledging all of you. I'm not sure what the rest of you are waiting for. You've been warned about my plans, so get on it.

The reason this has gone on this far is because I wanted to do another entry. Wanted to post this a while back, but life. Anyhoo, better late than never there's no time like the present. Besides, it's a performance I feel is deserving of the wait. I'm talking about the work turned in by one of the all-time great stand-up comedians in his one and only dramatic role. I'm talking Eddie Murphy in Dreamgirls.

Like lots of folks my age, I spent Saturday nights in the early 80s staying up later than my mother wanted me to catch each week's installment of Saturday Night Live. The unquestioned star of the show was a young Eddie Murphy. His characters are still some of the most iconic in the show's history. There was his version of Gumby, the James Brown imitations, and my personal favorite, Mr. Robinson. His first stand-up special, Delirious became something I committed to memory. Literally. I watched it I don't know how many times and owned the album version of it...on cassette. I could recite any part of it on command. My specialty was the drunken father portion of the routine. Of course, there were also his movies. Plenty of movies. He took hold of the box office with his very first cinematic outing, 48 Hrs. He followed up with titles like Trading Places, Beverly Hills Cop (I and II), Eddie Murphy Raw, and Coming to America making him one of, if not the biggest box-office draw of the 80s.

Eddie back in the good ol' days.

By the time we get to 2006, Eddie had become a completely different performer. His stand-up career had long disappeared into his rear view mirror. Also gone were the irreverent comedies of his youth. In their place was a stream of family movies aimed at the tween and younger crowd. I suppose the Nutty Professor movies qualify as irreverent, but they weren't Eddie taking delight in being the comedic antihero he once was, saving the day while blatantly defying authority. In fact, the NP features him killing off the one character who dares to challenge the establishment, Buddy Love. The family friendly Professor Klump can only be the hero by destroying Buddy. Since both men are played by Eddie Murphy it has the effect of the more straight-laced Murphy symbolically ending the part of his career that made him famous. Those movies did something else, too. They reinforced the notion that he could really act. Whether you liked those films or not, you have to admire the skill in which he played multiple characters all with different voices, mannerisms, and ways of moving. He not only played both the hero and the villain, but almost the hero's entire family, as well. I've seen other performers do similar things. I've never seen anyone do it better. It's a talent he's been showing in pieces since his SNL day, but fully put it on display for the first time way back in 1988's Coming to America. These are all virtuoso performances that I would have been fully behind Oscar nominations for, Since the Academy doesn't do comedy, pretty much, that didn't even have a chance of happening.

Dreamgirls, to oversimplify, is a fictionalized version of the story of Motown. Many of the characters are clearly fictitious counterparts of the people who made that a legendary record label, such as Berry Gordy, Diana Ross, and Smokey Robinson. Then there's Murphy's character, Jimmy "Thunder" Early, a composite of Motown's own Marvin Gaye, plus James Brown and Jackie Wilson. Out of this, Murphy constructs a person who is, at once, arrogant, obnoxious, talented, yet deeply troubled. Unlike the rest of the characters, he's already a star. We catch him at the top of his game and watch him spiral down the drain. Eddie handles it beautifully. Since Jimmy is a musician and this is a musical, that means Eddie has to take the stage. In real life, he's always had a love for making music, but is known as a comedian who makes bad records. His one hit, the Rick James penned "Party All the Time," has become a laughingstock in retrospect. The question going into this movie was would he be able to pull off those scenes. He does. And he does so by just having fun with them. I'd be lying if I said there weren't an element of comedy in his musical performances in this movie. There is. We can clearly see bits of his classic SNL skit creeping in, the one depicting James Brown singing about a hot tub. Once off stage, Murphy nails every aspect of Jimmy Early. He takes a character we started off hating and makes him sympathetic. This is most exemplified by my favorite scene in the entire movie. It's one that requires no singing, and the payoff doesn't even require dialogue from Murphy. Much of the movie is set during the 1960s and early 70s, so times are turbulent. Jimmy has been hard at work on an album of protest songs, much like Marvin Gaye's What's Going On. He brings it to label head Curtis Taylor (Jamie Foxx) who shoots it down because he doesn't see the commercial value in it. With a look of utter dejection and disgust on his face, Jimmy silently reaches into his pocket, pulls out a a bag of heroin and drops it on the table. It's a heart-breaking moment. In the career of an actor who has made his name by being consistently over the top, this subtly played moment stands out as perhaps his best piece of acting. For his efforts, Eddie Murphy was rewarded with an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

All of my life, I've had a firm belief that Eddie Murphy was not just some funny guy, but a supremely talented actor who so happened to be hilarious. His performance in Dreamgirls served as confirmation of my crazy idea. My hope was that this would open a new chapter in his career. I knew he would never stop doing comedies, but I wanted to see him tackle the occasional dramatic role. I hoped he would relish the chance to show off his chops from time to time. Nearly a decade later, I'm still waiting for him to take on something challenging. Unfortunately, his very next movie was completely rotten and unfunny comedy Norbit and he hasn't looked back since. Please, Eddie, on the off chance that you might read this, give us much less Rasputia, much more Jimmy.

Click here to enter the Tears of a Clown Blogathon

Click here to check out Heather's most recent entry in the So Fetch Friday series.