Here it is.
A page devoted to the King of Comedy, Jerry Lewis.
He's recently had yet another comeback. His live performance as Applegate in "Damn Yankees" was a hit on Broadway. It continued to be so, as he spent the next several years touring across the country. Also, Eddie Murphy's remake of Jerry's masterpiece, The Nutty Professor, was the comedy hit of summer 1996--just as the original was of summer 1963. Yes, Jerry Lewis is definitely back. But few people realize how brilliant and extensive his career has been, and how wide his influence. He's directed a dozen movies, and appeared in over fifty. There's scarcely a comedian in Hollywood today who doesn't owe a tremendous amount to him. Jerry Lewis is one of the towering figures of comedy, on stage and screen, in the entire 20th century.
Jerry Lewis was born into show business. Both his
parents were vaudeville performers. He gave his first public
performance at the age of five. But his career really began on
July 25, 1946, when the 20-year-old Jerry teamed up for the first
time with a singer by the name of Dean Martin. Martin and Lewis
were an instant hit. They wowed audiences at nightclubs, on the
radio, even on the infant form of TV. And especially, in the
movies. By 1949, Jerry and Dean were among the biggest stars in
Hollywood. It seemed like they could do no wrong. The critics may
not have liked them, but the public always did. Their movies were
box-office smashes, their radio performances and TV specials
earned high ratings, their live shows were mobbed. Martin and
Lewis made 16 feature films together before the partnership broke
up in 1956.
After the breakup with Dino, Jerry continued on
with his solo career. He made movies, put out records, and
expanded his charity activities with the Muscular Dystrophy
Association. Jerry had always been interested in the technical
aspects of moviemaking, and in 1961 he made his first film as
director as well as star, The Bellboy. He went on to
direct such inventive and interesting movies as The Ladies'
Man, The Errand Boy, and The Nutty
Professor (generally regarded as his masterpiece). All of
these date from the early 60s, but Jerry continued to make films
throughout that decade and then again in the early 80s. I am
especially fond of two of his later efforts, which are little
known even to Lewis aficionados: The Big Mouth
(1967), and Smorgasbord (also known as
Cracking Up, 1983).
Lewis's films have many special points of interest. They are rife with inventive visual gags. They have an odd take on gender, because Jerry is never quite 'masculine' enough, in the ways that our society has traditionally defined that term. And they certainly speak to the way that inert objects seem to take on a life of their own, in a culture of mass media and massive commodification. Also worth noting are Lewis's accomplishments as a director. He was the first mainstream filmmaker since Chaplin to do it all himself: to produce, direct, write, and star in his own movies. And the form of these movies is often as elegant as the content is crude. Lewis was fond of self-reflexive gestures, for instance, long before they became the norm in Hollywood comedy. Lewis was a technical innovator in filmmaking, as well: he was the first director to use video on the set, in order to get instant feedback on every shot.
What is it, then, that Jerry Lewis contributed to
show business? I wouldn't deny that his ability to cause
irritation is part of what he is doing as a comedian. Even back
when I was a kid, Jerry's funny voices and facial contortions had
the rare power to drive my parents out of the room. What grated
on them, as it still does on viewers today, was the relentless
infantilism of Jerry's act. Think of a small child's short
attention span, its underdeveloped motor skills, its manic
hyperactivity, its lack of inner restraint, its inability to
acknowledge the needs of others or to resign itself to deferred
gratification. These are the very elements that make up Lewis's
comic persona. His slapstick routines have none of the grace and
elegance that we find in the work of Buster Keaton, Charlie
Chaplin, or for that matter Jackie Chan. Instead, Lewis wallows
in klutziness. He has a very strange relation to machines and
other physical objects. The slightest touch is enough to make
everything go awry. The effect is always wildly disproportionate
to the cause. Jerry pushes a button, and triggers an alarm clock
that won't stop ringing. He pulls at a loose thread, and an
entire fabric unravels. He sings a wrong note, and glass shatters
everywhere. He takes a photo with a flashbulb, and night is
suddenly transformed into day. I find these routines funny, but I
suspect that they are also the very thing that many people find
excruciating. Because they depend on a set-up in which everything
is ever-so-slightly off. Lewis is a master of doing things just
precisely at the wrong time. His body seems to flail about at
random, triggering chain reactions of chaos in his surroundings.
His personality, just like his body, has no center. Jerry is
always teetering on the brink of complete disorganization.
All this is to say that Lewis's humor has a high discomfort factor. Often I laugh, but just as often it makes me nervous. That Jerry is infantile also means that he's excessive. Anything goes, without regard for norms of intelligence or taste. Even when Lewis has a good comic idea, you get the feeling he doesn't know when to stop. He pushes everything just a little too far. This excess is not an artistic mistake; it's the very point of Lewis's act. Most comedians create a sort of magical world, in which their particular brand of insanity rules. Such is the case for film comedy on nearly every level, all the way from the Three Stooges to Woody Allen. Lewis is nearly alone as an exception to this rule. His persona is never able to rearrange the world to his own liking. As a result, you don't get a sense of freedom from his films, the way you do, for instance, with the Marx Brothers or Monty Python. You never escape from that voice in the back of your mind that keeps on telling you how stupid this all is. There's always an air of shame and embarrassment to Lewis's films. The nerdy, wimpy Julius Kelp of The Nutty Professor can only escape his sense of inferiority by turning into something yet more obnoxious: the conceited bully Buddy Love. In Smorgasbord, Jerry's character is so messed up and so incompetent that he cannot even kill himself successfully. The film's a series of gags built around the fears and humiliations of an unsuccessful psychoanalytic treatment. But it is precisely this sense of discomfort, of being a square peg in a round hole, that Lewis' comedy captures so successfully.
| Sites of Interest of Comedian Jerry Lewis Ring Owner: Morgan Tregea Site: Behind the Hidden Mask: the art & life of Jerry Lewis |
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This page is always under construction. If you have any suggestions about links to add, please email me.