Saturday, July 23, 2011

Movie review – “The Big Mouth” (1967) **

This has a decent central idea – mild mannered accountant Jerry Lewis is a dead ringer for a gangster – but they make some errors i.e. having the gangster dead at the beginning, thereby robbing the plot of possible complications, and denying Jerry the chance to do some comedy. As if to compensate they get him to go into hiding by donning disguises, one as a nutty professor type scientist (good to see again but no real point in the story) and a Japanese kabuki. The macguffin is some diamonds.
There’s one or two laughs, such as gangsters having a break down when they see their former dead boss. But on the whole this is poor – it’s an ugly looking film, not very well thought out, the female lead is dull. Not appalling, just very mediocre - a waste of a strong concept.

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