The Jerk

The Jerk is a 1979 American comedy film directed by Carl Reiner and written by Steve Martin, Carl Gottlieb, and Michael Elias. This was Martin's first starring role in a feature film. The film also features Bernadette Peters, M. Emmet Walsh, and Jackie Mason.

Plot

Navin R. Johnson, a homeless man, directly addresses the camera and tells his story. He is the adopted white son of African American sharecroppers, who grows to adulthood naïvely unaware of his obvious adoption. He stands out in his family not just because of his skin color but because of his utter lack of rhythm when his adopted family plays spirited blues music. One night, he hears the staid and starchy Roger Wolfe Kahn Orchestra song called "Crazy Rhythm" on the radio and his feet spontaneously begin to move with the urge to dance; he sees this as a calling and decides to hitchhike to St. Louis, from where the song was broadcast. On the way, he stops at a motel, where a dog wakes him up by barking at his door. Navin thinks the dog is trying to warn of a fire and names the dog "Lifesaver". He wakes up the other hotel guests to rescue them, but when everyone realizes it was a false alarm, one man angrily suggests he call the dog "Shithead", which Navin takes literally.

Jerk (dance)

The jerk was a popular or fad dance in the 1960s.

Description

The jerk is similar to the monkey. The arms move and hands move as if conducting. The wrists cross in front of the chest and then sweep out in time, or at half time, with the music. The hands are up at face level. On count 1, the outward sweep, the hands are quickly pushed out, giving the jerky motion. For a little more style, the fingers may be snapped on the two outward movements—the first and third counts of the hand motion.

Songs featuring or suggesting the dance

Released as a single in 1964 on the Money record label, "The Jerk" was a hit for the Los Angeles band the Larks. In the same year, the Miracles wrote and recorded "Come on Do the Jerk". The Capitols performed a 1966 hit song called "Cool Jerk", written to capitalize on the dance's popularity. The song has been covered by several bands, including the Go-Go's. The band Rocket from the Crypt recorded the song "When in Rome, Do the Jerk" in 1998 as a homage to the dance.

The Larks

The Larks were an African American vocal group, active in the early 1950s. They were not the same group as the Los Angeles-based Larks (originally The Meadowlarks) featuring Don Julian.

Original members

Career of the group

The story of the Larks begins in the late 1920s, when singer Thermon Ruth founded the Selah Jubilee Singers in New York, later basing them in Raleigh, North Carolina where they had a radio show. They recorded for Decca Records and other smaller labels in the 1940s, and their membership overlapped with other religious vocal groups in the area, including The Southern Harmonaires. In 1945, Ruth tried to persuade Eugene Mumford of one of these groups, The Four Interns, to join the Selah Jubilee Singers, but before he could do so, Mumford was charged with the attempted rape of a white woman, convicted and imprisoned. He was innocent of the crime and later received a full pardon.

In 1946, Allen Bunn joined The Southern Harmonaires, and soon afterwards joined Thermon Ruth in the Selah Jubilee Singers as the group's guitarist and second lead singer. Three years later, Ruth and Bunn decided to leave to form a new group, The Jubilators. They linked up with Mumford, now released from prison, and with three members of The Southern Harmonaires, David McNeil, Hadie Rowe Jr., and Raymond "Pee Wee" Barnes.