What gives [Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid] some distinction is that it marks Steve Martin's most effective screen appearance yet. To put it briefly: clothes have made the comedian.

Describing how important his white suits were to his kinetic standup comedy act, Steve Martin said that they were "like leotards that define your body." With their sharp, square lines, they were a key component of the Martin comic persona: the total straight-arrow and ultimate fair-haired boy whose goofy amiability couldn't totally disguise his panic about making friends and influencing people in our post-hip era. Martin's everybody-join-in humor was the opposite of hip; his goal seemed to be finding the silliness that could bond us all.

When Martin and [Carl] Reiner first tried to transfer his humor to the screen in The Jerk, all they arrived at was lowest-common-denominator buffoonery. Jettisoning his wardrobe and his mock suaveness, Martin appeared...