Jerry Lewis: As part of its “Summer Under the Stars” series, TCM will be devoting Aug. 17 to one of the biggest box office draws (initially paired with Dean Martin) of the 1950s and early 1960s, and a talent that some have hailed as a “comedy genius.”
- TCM’s 2024 “Summer Under the Stars” schedule – Aug. 17: Turner Classic Movies will be airing 12 titles starring Jerry Lewis, including five of his pairings with Dean Martin (e.g., At War with the Army, Sailor Beware) and several of his solo efforts (The Ladies Man, The Nutty Professor).
- This Jerry Lewis article includes a brief overview of three of his TCM movies: Scared Stiff, Rock-a-Bye Baby, and The Disorderly Orderly.
TCM’s ‘Summer Under the Stars’ Aug. 17 schedule: 12 Jerry Lewis movies showcasing the comedian whom some consider a genius while others … just don’t
Turner Classic Movies’ 2024 “Summer Under the Stars” series continues on Saturday, Aug. 17, with 12 titles starring first-timer Jerry Lewis (1926–2017), which some have called a comedy genius, some others an acquired taste, and some others yet a taste to be never, ever acquired. (See TCM’s Jerry Lewis movie schedule further below. Most titles will remain available for a while on the Watch TCM app.)
Wherever you stand in regard to this French Legion of Honor recipient (!), Nobel Peace Prize nominee (!!), and apparent Jim Carrey inspiration, TCM’s Jerry Lewis day is actually good news as his Paramount movies aren’t shown all that often. Besides, these comedies come peppered with quality on-screen talent.
For instance, Scared Stiff features sultry Lizabeth Scott and peppy Carmen Miranda in her final role (she died two years later); You’re Never Too Young features two underrated actresses, Diana Lynn and Veda Ann Borg; The Caddy features soon-to-be Oscar winner Donna Reed (From Here to Eternity, 1953) and, as Reed’s mother, veteran Marjorie Gateson; Rock-a-Bye Baby features steamy Marilyn Maxwell and comely Connie Stevens; The Disorderly Orderly features veteran Glenda Farrell, proud hypochondriac Alice Pearce, and scene-stealer Kathleen Freeman, who can also be seen in The Ladies Man, The Nutty Professor, and Which Way to the Front?.
Besides, you can scour for James Dean in a bit part in Sailor Beware, which also features a young Vince Edwards and Paramount star Betty Hutton in a cameo.
And here’s where we point out that what may well be Lewis’ three best starring/costarring vehicles are listed above: Scared Stiff, Rock-a-Bye Baby, and The Disorderly Orderly. The first title was directed by Paramount stalwart George Marshall (The Blue Dahlia, The Perils of Pauline); the last two by broad-comedy expert Frank Tashlin (Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, The Glass Bottom Boat), who handled a total of eight Lewis films:[1]
Below is a brief glimpse at these three Jerry Lewis star vehicles (listed in chronological order) airing on his “Summer Under the Stars” day.
An aside: Known in some quarters as “The King of Comedy,” Jerry Lewis delivers a remarkable performance as the dour title character in Martin Scorsese’s 1982 drama The King of Comedy, starring Robert De Niro.
Scared Stiff (1953)
George Mashall’s Scared Stiff is a reworking of his 1940 comedy The Ghost Breakers, in which Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard essentially reprised their roles in the previous year’s The Cat and the Canary (directed by Elliott Nugent): Beautiful heiress inherits a fortune/an estate and must spend time at the creepy/haunted location; bumbling clown shows up to make things better/worse for her.
Despite key plot similarities, The Cat and the Canary is based on a 1922 play by John Willard, whereas The Ghost Breakers is based on a 1909 play – The Ghost Breaker (in the singular) – by Paul Dickey and Charles W. Goddard, which had been twice transferred to screen during the silent era.*
The Ghost Breakers has its inveterate fans, film historian Leslie Halliwell among them. (TCM showed it last year, on Bob Hope’s “Summer Under the Stars” day.) Even though one could say it’s no sillier than the 1940 version, Scared Stiff isn’t nearly as well regarded.
But whether you prefer Bob Hope or Jerry Lewis (or neither one), as mentioned further up Scared Stiff features Lizabeth Scott (as the heiress to an estate in a small Caribbean island) and Carmen Miranda (in a small role as a singer), thus allowing your attention to freely wander away from Lewis and Dean Martin. If you’re easily amused, you can also get a kick out of looking for Hope and Bing Crosby in a cameo.
The Scared Stiff screenplay is credited to Walter DeLeon (who died in 1947; he had adapted the 1940 The Ghost Breakers and, with Lynn Starling, the 1939 The Cat and the Canary) and Herbert Baker, with additional dialogue by Ed Simmons and future All in the Family and The Jeffersons writer-producer Norman Lear.
An aside: According to unverified online sources, Ivan Reitman’s 1984 blockbuster Ghostbusters was inspired by The Ghost Breakers. If so, one assumes they mean that the title was inspired by the 1940 film, as the plots of the two movies are dissimilar.
* In 1914, Cecil B. DeMille and Oscar Apfel directed H.B. Warner and Rita Stanwood. In 1922, Alfred E. Green directed Wallace Reid and Lila Lee. Both versions kept the play’s title (in the singular).
Rock-a-Bye Baby (1958)
Frank Tashlin’s Rock-a-Bye Baby is a remake of screenwriter-director Preston Sturges’ classic 1944 comedy The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek, starring Eddie Bracken as a nerdy small-town boy and Betty Hutton as a young wife and expectant mother who has zero idea as to her husband’s identity – well, except that his name “had a ‘z’ i it.” (Before it all happened, she had been doing her booze-soaked bit for the war effort.)
Like The Ghost Breakers/Scared Stiff, the less widely admired Rock-a-Bye Baby is no less amusing than The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek, though, admittedly, Eddie Bracken was a far more personable light comedian than Jerry Lewis and, Production Code constraints or no, the original is far more daring. For instance: In the remake, Hollywood actress Marilyn Maxwell knows who her husband/the father of her fetus is; she is just trying to avoid a scandal because she no longer has her marriage certificate.
Other Jerry Lewis remakes/revamps on his “Summer Under the Stars” day include:
- At War with the Army is a ripoff of the Bud Abbott and Lou Costello 1941 hit Buck Privates and facsimile.
- You’re Never Too Young is a remake of Billy Wilder’s 1942 classic The Major and the Minor, with Jerry Lewis in the old Ginger Rogers role. (Diana Lynn is featured in both movies but in different roles).
- The Nutty Professor is a reworking of Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 novella Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, with Lewis – more or less – in the role(s) previously played by John Barrymore (1920), Fredric March (1931), and Spencer Tracy (1941), among others.
The Disorderly Orderly (1964)
For a change, the Jerry Lewis star vehicle The Disorderly Orderly is not a remake. In Frank Tashlin’s comedy, Lewis plays the title character, a clumsy hospital orderly whose dreams of becoming a doctor are hindered by his propensity to psychosomatically feel the symptoms of his patients’ ailments.
Whether or not you find Lewis’ mugging at the camera humorous, The Disorderly Orderly does have a good number of positive elements: In one of her few post-1950 big-screen appearances, veteran Glenda Farrell (Little Caesar, Gold Diggers of 1935) plays the head of the hospital; Kathleen Freeman is a no-nonsense nurse; and Alice Pearce is a patient whose favorite pastime is providing the orderly with every single detail of each of her maladies, whether real or imaginary.
The Disorderly Orderly also features a wild chase that should remind viewers of silent era comedies and later titles like Peter Bogdanovich’s What’s Up, Doc? and John Landis’ The Blues Brothers.
Frank Tashlin received screenplay credit on The Disorderly Orderly, working from a screen story by Norm Liebmann and Ed Haas.
Immediately below is Jerry Lewis’ “Summer Under the Stars” schedule.
Jerry Lewis movies: TCM’s ‘Summer Under the Stars’ schedule (EDT) – Aug. 17
6:00 AM Which Way to the Front? (1970)
Director: Jerry Lewis.
Cast: Jerry Lewis, Jan Murray, John Wood, Steve Franken, Willie Davis, Dack Rambo, Robert Middleton, Kaye Ballard, Gary Crosby, Kathleen Freeman, Neil Hamilton, George Takei.
96 min. Comedy.8:00 AM At War with the Army (1950)
Director: Hal Walker.
Cast: Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Mike Kellin, Jimmie Dundee, Dick Stabile, Tommy Farrell, Polly Bergen.
93 min. Comedy.10:00 AM Sailor Beware (1951)
Director: Hal Walker.
Cast: Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Corinne Calvet, Marion Marshall, Robert Strauss, Leif Erickson, Vince Edwards, Skip Homeier, James Dean (bit).
Cameo: Betty Hutton.
108 min. Comedy.12:00 PM Scared Stiff (1953)
Director: George Marshall.
Cast: Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Lizabeth Scott, Carmen Miranda, George Dolenz, Dorothy Malone, William Ching, Henry Brandon.
Cameos: Bing Crosby, Bob Hope.
108 min. Comedy.2:00 PM You’re Never Too Young (1955)
Director: Norman Taurog.
Cast: Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Diana Lynn, Nina Foch, Raymond Burr, Mitzi McCall, Veda Ann Borg, Nancy Kulp.
102 min. Comedy.4:00 PM The Caddy (1953)
Director: Norman Taurog.
Cast: Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Donna Reed, Barbara Bates, Joseph Calleia, Fred Clark, Marshall Thompson, Marjorie Gateson, Argentina Brunetti.
95 min. Comedy.6:00 PM Rock-a-Bye Baby (1958)
Director: Frank Tashlin.
Cast: Jerry Lewis, Marilyn Maxwell, Connie Stevens, Reginald Gardiner, Salvatore Baccaloni, Hans Conried, Isobel Elsom.
Cameo: Jack Benny.
103 min. Comedy.8:00 PM The Nutty Professor (1963)
Director: Jerry Lewis. Cast: Jerry Lewis, Stella Stevens, Del Moore, Kathleen Freeman, Med Flory, Norman Alden, Howard Morris, Buddy Lester, Marvin Kaplan, David Landfield, Skip Ward, Henry Gibson, Les Brown and His Band of Renown.
107 min. Comedy.10:00 PM The Ladies Man (1961)
Director: Jerry Lewis. Cast: Jerry Lewis, Helen Traubel, Pat Stanley, Kathleen Freeman, George Raft, Harry James, Marty Ingels, Buddy Lester, Gloria Jean, Hope Holiday, Jack LaLanne, Roscoe Ates, Jack Kruschen, Doodles Weaver, Beverly Wills.
95 min. Comedy.12:00 AM The Disorderly Orderly (1964)
Director: Frank Tashlin. Cast: Jerry Lewis, Glenda Farrell, Susan Oliver, Everett Sloane, Karen Sharpe, Kathleen Freeman, Del Moore, Alice Pearce, Milton Frome, John Macchia, Barbara Nichols, Danny Costello, Benny Rubin, Frank J. Scannell.
90 min. Comedy.2:00 AM Cracking Up / Smorgasbord (1983)
Director: Jerry Lewis. Cast: Jerry Lewis, Herb Edelman, Zane Buzby, Foster Brooks, Francine York, John Abbott, Milton Berle, Sammy Davis Jr.
83 min. Comedy.4:00 AM Cookie (1989)
Director: Susan Seidelman. Cast: Peter Falk, Dianne Wiest, Emily Lloyd, Michael V. Gazzo, Brenda Vaccaro, Adrian Pasdar, Lionel Stander, Jerry Lewis, Bob Gunton, Ricki Lake, Joe Mantello, Thomas Quinn, Joy Behar.
93 min. Comedy.
notes/references
Frank Tashlin collaborations
[1] Frank Tashlin directed Jerry Lewis in the following:
- Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis: Artists and Models and Hollywood or Bust.
- Solo Jerry Lewis: Rock-a-Bye Baby, The Geisha Boy, Cinderfella, It’s Only Money, Who’s Minding the Store?, and The Disorderly Orderly.
Jerry Lewis “Summer Under the Stars” movie schedule via the TCM website.
“Jerry Lewis Movies on TCM: 3 of His Best Comedies” last updated in August 2024.