Thursday, December 28, 2006

Movie review - JL#10 - "The Errand Boy" (1961) **

Jerry Lewis' third film as director mirrors the structure of his first, The Bellboy: a narrator introduces as to a specific "world", then we meet Jerry who proceeds to wreck havoc within that world in a series of set pieces, there is a moral, then the film ends.
This isn't as good as that first film though: this one has a plot about Jerry being sent to spy on the workers, but it is shamefully underused (why not give him a friend/love interest who is betrayed? why not have him uncover a plot? they just throw it away); also Jerry's character isn't as nice - whereas the Bellboy was at least always keen his errand boy just knocks things over, then turns around and has a chat to a puppet (actually an unexpectedly charming sequence) where he's revealed to be not that dumb - but we've just seen him be stupid, we know he is that dumb.
There are some pleasant things - some strong gags , decent satire esp involving a movie siren, a surprisingly worthwhile speech about the art of performing given by a director character towards the end of the movie. But considering the setting it is a bit of a miss.

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