Movie review - JL#4 - "The Geisha Boy" (1958) **1/2

Chaplin's disease hits most comedians sooner or later, and it walloped Lewis hard. This film jumps on the late 50s fascinated-with-Japan craze (Teahouse of the August Moon, Bridge on the River Kwai, Sayoonara) and has Jerry play a magician who heads off to the orient because he can't get gig stateside.

A lot of this is very funny: Jerry's shenanigans with his pet rabbit (he was obviously still weaning himself off Dean Martin at this stage, though by now the sidekick was reduced to being a rabbit), Jerry performing on the front lines of Korea (this would have made a film in itself), Jerry making life miserable for a film star (Marie MacDonald - who really could have been so much better, egomaniacal movie stars are easy roles to play but she misses it), Sessue Hayakawa spoofing(slightly overlong) his River Kwai role, Jerry at a baseball game.

Unfortunately, far too much of the film is spent on the relationship between Jerry and a cute Japanese orphan whom only Jerry can make smile (Chaplin's disease!) This goes on and on and is like "come on, get over it" - one wishes more time was spent on making fun of the film star or playing the front lines. Suzanne Pleshette is cute in her first film; they seem to be setting her up as a love interest but then she just sort of becomes a friend to Jerry - there is an awful moment at the end where she says she's going to forget to be liberated and learn to treat men like Japanese girls do.

Director Frank Tashlin shows some of his usual bright gags, colours and satire (Bob Hope speaking Japanese on TV, a subtitles battle) - plus a fondness for female legs: we see not only MacDonald's but Nobu McCarthy's (who is a potential love interest, too, but never becomes one - it was as though they were keen to keep Lewis' character sexless).