John Parsons

A close friend who prefers to remember the laughs that Lenny Bruce's memory evokes instead of the tears, profiles the outrageous, groundbreaking comic whose iconoclastic material in a conservative era got him into tragic trouble.

Upstart comedian Lenny Bruce is the subject of this documentary by Fred Baker that features performance footage of Bruce's stand-up comedy and interviews with those who knew him best. Ahead of his time, Bruce was persecuted for dishing out anti-establishment humor in a decidedly conservative era. Steve Allen, Paul Krassner, Mort Sahl, Kenneth Tynan, Nat Hentoff and Malcolm Muggeridge share personal memories of Bruce in candid video memoirs.