Jerry Lewis’ first ever movie outside Paramount – he signed a deal with Columbia – and his first one in a while where he’s not credited on the screenplay, although he is the director. This has one of the most idiotic set ups Jerry ever had: he’s engaged to a shrink (Janet Leigh) and wants to move to Paris for a a (he’s an artist who won a competition) but she can’t because she’s afraid of leaving her patients – especially three women who all have trouble relating to men. So Jerry pretends to be each woman’s ideal man, have them fall in love with him, “cure them”… so Janet can go.
The amount of ways this is a dud plot is amazing – Janet Leigh breaches confidentiality, it has low stakes (he’s only going to France temporarily), it involves him cheating on Janet Leigh (basically), it’s not vaguely believable the problems of her patients are the same. There’s nothing wrong with the idea of Jerry playing multiple roles and trying to get women to fall in love with him – that’s funny. It’s got good complication and logically builds up to a finale with Jerry running around trying not to get busted. It worked in Boeing Boeing. But the set up to get there is lousy.
They don’t help by giving this big role to James Best as a friend of Leigh and Lewis’ who tells Leigh she’s not a whole woman if she’s obsessed with work, and who suggests the plan to Jerry. It’s a real shame because there’s some hilarious stuff here - Jerry in drag being a southern lady is brilliant. And Gila Golan, Leslie Parish and Mary Ann Mobley are pretty as the girls. But script does matter, even for Jerry Lewis.
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