Marshall Fine’s Robert Klein Still Can’t Stop His Leg “serves as not just a personal look at Klein, but as something larger. It’s a real piece of history. What Fine and Klein have done here is make an excellent companion piece to the very good Joan Rivers doc of a few years ago, A Piece of Work. Since Alan King died rather young and abruptly, and nothing’s been done on Stiller and Meara, there is very little documentary record of the great Jewish comics who launched from the Ed Sullivan Show era.

“The doc is also very funny. Klein is incredibly endearing and corny, while at the same time maintaining an edge. That’s why he made 40 appearances on Letterman. I hope The Weinstein Company can give Still Can’t Stop His Leg a good release in major markets before VOD or Netflix. Like a Robert Klein show, the film is intimate and hilarious.” — posted by Showbiz 411‘s Roger Friedman on 4.20.

I finally saw Fine’s doc this afternoon on my Macbook Air, and I fully concur with Friedman’s remarks. Yes, I’ve been friends with Fine for a long time and yes, I’ve admired Klein since I was a kid but this is a fine (sorry) doc that imparts wisdom, feeling, perspective and smarts.

In the late ’70s a smart Jewish friend and fellow cineaste told me I had more Jewish guilt than he. That was the beginning of my honorary Jewhood, which thrives to this day.