The Jerk / All of Me

THE JERK, 1979, Universal, 94 min. Dir. Carl Reiner. "The new phone book's here! The new phone book's here!" Before AIRPLANE, Jim Carrey, the Farrelly Brothers and Judd Apatow, there was THE JERK. Steve Martin and Carl Reiner team up for one of the most original and influential comedies ever made. Martin, in his screen debut, plays the lovable idiot Navin R. Johnson, a young sharecropper who leaves his poor black family behind to see the world and be somebody.

ALL OF ME, 1984, Universal, 94 min. Dir. Carl Reiner. Ailing heiress Lily Tomlin arranges to have her soul transferred into the body of Victoria Tennant, but the procedure goes wrong and she ends up inhabiting the right side of Steve Martin instead. As the man and woman battle each other within the same body, Reiner mines huge laughs from the spectacle of Martin displaying his substantial gifts for physical comedy.