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A redoubtable system of refractions, quoting Keaton while reaching back to Méliès (L'Homme-Orchestre). The orphaned heiress (Donna Butterworth) and her potential guardians, "five nutty uncles" plus gangland ghost and loyal chauffeur, Jerry Lewis assoluto. The wheezing old salt is a war hero in his own mind, the torpedo is disarmed but the vessel goes down. The fashion photographer is a klutz nearly devoured by the oversized camera—mise en scène is his department, he flips through colored backgrounds before settling on a blank wall and sets the lighting to blasting until his models wilt. The guffawing aviator runs his own rickety airline "for the birds," the in-flight movie is an Anne Baxter melodrama that seesaws on the screen as the airplane swoops and twirls. (The soundtrack emanates from a pop band crammed in the baggage compartment, cf. A Hard Day's Night.) The sleuth is "the scourge of the underworld," his twin is the muggy hoodlum wielding Tommy-gun and dagger and slingshot. Most striking is the biter clown eager to ditch the trade, in his greasepaint he embodies Molière's dictum: "C'est un terrible métier que celui qui consiste à faire rire les bonnêtes gens." The artist and his audience, from "squealing brats" to gray biddies. Kubrick's The Killing gets the ball rolling, an armored car robbery foiled by the doofus in baseball duds. The persona strain (The Nutty Professor) multiplied, the fluidity of Lewis the spazzing chimera, Freudian slapstick for days. "Some hero. I didn't even know it." A solid foundation for later comedies, Reiner mines the gas station sequence for The Jerk and Landis in Animal House remembers the twisting military parade. With Sebastian Cabot, Neil Hamilton, Jay Adler, Robert Strauss, Renie Riano, Jesslyn Fax, and Vince Barnett.
--- Fernando F. Croce |