Cinema: Rendering to Caesar

TEN FROM YOUR SHOW OF SHOWS Directed by MAX LIEBMAN

Properly, this is not a movie. It is a compilation of kinescopes—crude and grainy in technical quality—from a madhouse landmark in TV comedy.

Your Show of Shows of the 1950s is remembered, along with Ernie Kovacs' excursions beyond the pale, as the best and funniest work ever done for TV. Yet memory is a fun-house mirror There is always a nagging doubt when gazing into it: Were things really that good? Yes, they certainly were, as this mini-anthology resoundingly proves.

The ten episodes here, selected from among sketches performed on 161 shows, not only...

Want the full story?

Subscribe Now

Subscribe
Subscribe

Learn more about the benefits of being a TIME subscriber

If you are already a subscriber sign up — registration is free!