THE NEW COMEDIANS

THE NEW CENTURIONS (1972)
dir: Richard Fleischer

THE NEW COMEDIANS
MAD #158, April 1973
w: Dick DeBartolo
a: Mort Drucker

Movie about the first year of three policemen on the job, Roy (Stacy Keach), Sergio (Erik Estrada), and Gus (Scott Wilson). This parody justifies the title by making them all smart-asses and delivering lines with “but seriously, folks.”

Henny Youngman, Mort Sahl, Bob Newhart, Milton Berle, Flip Wilson, and Rodney Dangerfield aren't on the force either, or in this parody. They're also here to justify the title. Note how some of them use weapons to simulate the props in their act.

The film actually begins with Roy being teamed up with veteran Andy Kilvinsky (George C. Scott). He first sees pictures of past cops on the wall, and then has assignments like breaking up a domestic dispute.

One of the pictures is of Fred Gwynne and Joe E. Ross, Muldoon and Toody from Car 54, Where Are You?

As Andy orients Roy, he has all kinds of rules he has on the job that he teaches. Roy comes home late to his wife (Jane Alexander) and daughter Becky (uncredited), who stayed up waiting for him to come home, an omen of things to come.

After Andy and Roy drive a bunch of prostitutes around in a paddy wagon and get them drunk just to keep them off the streets, Roy comes home late again to a lonely wife.

Roy is tired and wants to go to sleep but can't because of the noise being made by plumbers, which he finds too expensive anyway. Then on the job, Andy and Roy arrest a man on suspicion of robbery and he refuses to comply on the grounds he's only being taken in because of his color. Roy calls for an ambulance implying he's threatening to use violence if the man doesn't get in the car, then reveals he was bluffing all along. Not shown: Telling the man he did this to get him in the car earns the man's respect.

While making the rounds, Roy is shot by two suspects and recuperates. Andy and another partner, Sergio, investigate illegal aliens living in an apartment that their landlord falsely claims isn't paying their rent. Andy retires (the parody doesn't show that a year passes) and after he returns, he kills himself because he has nothing to do without his job.

Roy and his wife get a divorce (which happens during the year that passes. They sort of fudge the chronology here) because he's paying more attention to his career than to her and becoming more like Kilvinsky. After investigating a call from Lorrie (Rosalind Cash) about a break-in, Roy gets drunk on the job and tries to arrest a woman he calls “Silverpants” (Bea Thompson) for no reason and she takes off and tries to lose him but he holds on to her car.

After being dragged, Roy comes back to Lorrie, who's a nurse, and ends up forming a relationship with her. He redeems himself, then on the job dies after getting shot again.