I think I’ve mentioned this before but Joe Dante once commented the 50s really ended in America when JFK was shot – it’s a great observation because the careers of so many 50s stars kept strong in the early 60s but never regained the same heights after around 1963: Glenn Ford, Sandra Dee, Debbie Reynolds, Yul Brynner, Susan Hayward, Rock Hudson… and Jerry Lewis. Lewis was at his peak in 63 with The Nutty Professor but the failure of his TV show can in hindsight be seen to be the beginning of the end. Part of the reason he was starting to look a little old for the character he played. Part of it was simply a decline in material, but there is still some good stuff here.
The plot has the entourage of a recently-deceased comic star try to build a new one out of a bellboy (this was originally meant to be a sequel to The Bellboy). Most of the entourage are elderly character actors – Keenan Wynn, Peter Lorre (in his last movie and looking awful), John Carradine. The one girl is the pretty Ina Balin goes through the film making wistful, sweet comments all the time – even at the beginning she suggests the entourage want to create a star because they cant bear to be separate as a family.
This has some of Jerry’s best ever sequences. Two of the funniest are a singing lesson where Jerry keeps stuffing up, and where he lip synchs his dreadful pop song on a TV show. Less effective are an extended silent (well, dialogue-less) flashback to Jerry at a school dance and a similar long sequence at the end which is meant to launch Jerry’s character to worldwide fame, but actually isn’t that funny. There’s also a really different ending – Jerry’s character falls off a balcony, but then reveals he couldn’t die because he’s played by Jerry Lewis, and goes off to have lunch with members of the crew!
The cast also includes Scatman Crothers (looking like an old man already) and a bunch of Hollywood types making cameos, including George Raft, Hedda Hopper, Ed Wynn and Rhoda Fleming.
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