Der Tölpel vom Dienst

By this Time in His Solo Career Jerry Lewis was Showing Signs of Slipping and the Usual Self Indulgence was Becoming a Bit Much for Discerning Movie Goers and this was the Comedian's Final Year to be a Box Office Star.

It is a Typical Mugfest for Jerry and with His Familiar Director and Friend Frank Tashlin to Help with the Ego, there is Much Emphasis on Elaborate Visuals for Lewis to Run Amok in and around. But a Number of Times the Whackiness Subsides for some Sentimental Claptrap that is Painful to Watch.

The Final Chase Sequence is Quite Good and Jerry has a Few Bits of Inspiration Throughout and this was the Last Movie that could be called a Fine Film as the Remainder of His Output was Decisively Poor.

Note: Jerry Lewis was outstanding in a straight role in Martin Scorsese's King of Comedy (1982), one of his best performances on screen.

I am not a Jerry Lewis specialist, though I possess nearly all his films, but comedies are not my stuff. However I like this kind of entertainment,naive, mindless but exciting, especially in climaxes. This one makes no exception and remains I guess one of Jerry Lewis' best, pulled by a Frank Tashlin in great shape. Last fifteen minutes are overwhelming, a gigantic tribute to Buster Keaton and silent slapstick masterpieces. IT'S A MAD MAD WORLD was also a terrific tribute to slapstick movies.

Disorderly Orderly, The (1964)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Totally unfunny Jerry Lewis film finds him playing (gasp) a dumb orderly who wishes to become a doctor. Lewis falls in love with a suicidal patient and she could hold the key to him getting his wish. I really love Jerry Lewis and find him quite funny in interviews but man have I been disappointed in his solo work. One of the characters tells the dumb orderly that his problem is that he tries too hard and I think that's the problem with Lewis. The jokes are so forced that they are more annoying than anything else. A few laughs but after thirty minutes I started looking at my carpet.

Medical school flunky Jerry Lewis, who turns to jelly when patients talk about their grisly ailments, finds himself employed as an orderly at a private hospital/sanitarium/rest home (the script can't decide which it is). There's a drill sergeant head nurse who shouts at Jerry, a resident manager who dotes on Jerry, a corporation head who wants to fire Jerry, and a student nurse who wants to marry Jerry. In between all this, Lewis crosses his eyes and knocks things over. Some of this slapstick might be funnier if director Frank Tashlin knew how to follow through on a gag--and had possibly found a way to reel Lewis in. The glossy production is bright, the supporting players are good, and there's a funny, frantic chase through the streets and into a supermarket at the finale. Tashlin's outrageous sense of satire is occasionally clever, but it can't really bolster the dim-wittedness of Lewis' geek act, nor the cartoony screwball bits (as when Lewis cracks open a bad TV set and creates a snowy blizzard in a hospital room). Lewis-addicts are obviously the film's prime audience; for everyone else, a few scattered laughs amongst the high-decibel shouting and mugging. ** from ****

Jerry Lewis may have reached his wackiest here. He plays Jerome Littlefield, an orderly who appears to be a combination of Insp. Clouseau and Gilligan. Pretty much most of the movie features him getting into a series of embarrassing situations. I personally think that they could have just left it at that and avoided the love story.

And yes, that's Alice Pearce as the over-communicative Miss Fuzzibee, right before she got the role of a certain nosy neighbor suspicious that there's a witch or something in the neighborhood. All in all, "The Disorderly Orderly" is classic comedy at its best. You gotta wonder how they did some of those scenes. Also starring Kathleen Freeman.