Written By Jason LockardSeeing the Elegant Cary Grant, The Heroic John Wayne, The Bad Boy Marlon Brando, The Funny but Cantankerous Drunk W. C. Fields. I think these great stars are why I wanted to become a filmmaker. And now with The advent of DVDs and blu-rays, Turner Classic Movies, DVRs and streaming services, we can relive the glory days of cinema any day.
Most people probably know him just as the host of The Memorial Day Muscular Dystrophy Telethon, but what some of you probably don’t know is that Jerry Lewis was one of the greatest comedians all time.
Lewis was born Joseph Levitch on March 16, 1926, at Newark Beth Israel Hospital in Newark, New Jersey, to Russian Jewish parents. His father, Daniel Levitch, was a master of ceremonies and vaudeville entertainer who used the professional name Danny Lewis. His mother, Rachel "Rae" Levitch went by the stage name Rae Lewis, she was a piano player for the radio station WOR and was her husband's musical director. Lewis began performing at age five alongside his parents in the Catskill Mountains in New York.
What he really gained his first real success was when he started to partner with crooner Dean Martin and the two had instant success playing to sold out night clubs, they also starred in a Colgate Comedy Hour and multiple hilarious films! But after a falling out the comedy duo split up and the world lost one of the greatest comedy teams ever. Dean went on to be a best selling singer and star in the Dean Martin Variety Show and Dean Martin Celebrity Roast where Jerry Lewis went on to make some of the greatest comedy films of all time! One of which we are recommending this month!
The Nutty Professor a spoof film of the novel by Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. Jerry Lewis says that he had been "enthralled” with Spencer Tracey in Jekyll and Hyde since he was a kid. So it’s only logical that eventually he’d create his "Jekyll and Hyde comedy". In that era of film making only Jerry Lewis and Walt Disney were making films that were considered for children. And when Paramount Pictures got the script of The Nutty Professor the executives had fears that it would scare children to which Jerry Lewis replied, “If Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs didn‘t scare them The Nutty Professor won’t!”
Long before Eddie Murphy took the reigns of the Character Buddy Love; Jerry Lewis invented the character of the accident prone, geeky, buck-toothed, introverted, socially inept professor Julius Kelp in 1963. Jerry gave Julius Kelp one of the funniest and most irritating voices ever. Jerry Lewis said that the voice of Professor Kelp came to him in 1955 when he and Dean met a man on a train with that very voice and it stuck with Jerry all those years till he created the character Julius Kelp!
Julius Kelp who longs to be the life of the party and spoons after his student Stella Purdy. So in love is he that he decides to invent a magical potion that changes him into The Sauvé Debonair Lounge Singer and girl chaser Buddy Love. Keep your ears open for Lewis’ rendition of "That Old Black Magic". As Buddy Love he is so obnoxious but people are drawn to him like flies to honey! Many have said that Buddy Love was a dig at his former partner Dean Martin but Jerry responded to that by saying “I loved Dean! Buddy Love was every bad person I ever knew. The Man who steals a cab from a lady, the man in the hotel who called for room service to find out what’s taking so long and the person says there’s been a delay but it’s on it’s way up now and the man say drop dead you and your family!” That is Buddy Love!
The Swinger Buddy Love enters The Purple Pit [A nightclub where students hangout] and once he’s in there he saunters over to the bartender [played flawlessly by Buddy Lester] and orders an Alaskan Polar Bear Heater! For those that are wondering how to make one here it is:
At one point during the instructions, the bartender quips "You going to drink this here, or are you going to take it home and rub it on your chest?" Love instructs the bartender to "mix it nice" and pour it into a tall glass. The bartender asks if he can try some; after doing so, he completely freezes like a statue. While the drink started as a fictional beverage, it has made the list of many real mixed drinks.
One of the funniest scenes as Buddy Love is with Del Moore [Dr. Hamius R. Warfield: Dean of the college] as Buddy plays him like a fiddle convincing Del to perform Shakespeare with his pants down in the office! Film Critic Danny Peary has made the claim in his 1981 book Cult Movies that the character of Love is actually the real Jerry Lewis.
The film also stars the beautiful Stella Stevens as Stella Purdy, The character was originally called Stella Pain but Stevens said to Jerry “I don‘t want to be a pain” so he changed it! Also gracing the film is the extremely talented and very funny Kathleen Freeman as the secretary. She starred in 13 Jerry Lewis films. Jerry in an interview said how great she was saying that one morning he rewrote a scene [two pages long] and gave it to her while she was in the make-up chair. She read over it and shot it! Lewis commented “I printed take one…. That‘s the best I can say about her…. I printed take one!”
Also in the cast is Howard Morris [Ernest T. Bass of Andy Griffith Show] as Julius Kelp’s Henpecked Father and is accentuated by the music of Big Band Great Les Brown and his band of Renown! Although the hilarity is epic it is not the only reason to watch the film. The cinematography is amazing… The colors and set are beautiful and the music is great plus it has a great moral. Which is be happy with who you are cause if your not no one else will be! As much as Eddie Murphy is a comic legend Eddie Murphy’s version of The Nutty Professor [1996] falls short of The Classic Jerry Lewis’ Buddy Love!
In 2000 The American Film Institute honored Jerry Lewis’ The Nutty Professor with the honor of naming it #99 in AFI 100 years… 100 laughs! To which Jerry joked, “Just Made It!” For decades Jerry said he wanted to do a sequel to The Nutty Professor but has to settle for Eddie Murphy’s versions of the film, but his dream came true on November 25, 2008 when the Animated Direct to DVD production of The Nutty Professor Starring The Comic Legend and Drake Bell [of TV‘s Drake and Josh and Superhero Movie] was released. In the film Julius Kelp’s teenage grandson Harold Kelp discovering his grandfather’s secret formula and unleashing his alter-ego. This sequel was directed by Paul Taylor!
Jerry Lewis would go on to write, produce and star in many feature films, including, The disorderly orderly, Cinderfella, The Errand Boy, Who's minding the store, The Patsy, The Bellboy, The family Jewels and so many more. He would also have his own TV show The Jerry Lewis Show that aired on ABC, NBC and than in syndication for a total of 63 episodes.
On August 20, 2017 Jerry Lewis died at his home in Las Vegas, Nevada, at 9:15 a.m. at the age of 91. The cause was end-stage cardiac disease and peripheral artery disease
So if your in the mood for a great comedy or just want to discover a classic check out Jerry Lewis’ The Nutty Professor! It is a lot of fun. And try some of the other great Lewis comedies, I think you will agree with me he was a comedy genius!
Moral Rating: Nothing Offensive
Audience: Family
Genre: Musical Comedy
Length: 107 min.
Released: 1963
Our Rating: A
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