Wo, bitte, geht's zur Front?

I had watched this as a kid but, not being much of a Jerry Lewis fan, I had completely forgotten it (not that it's in any way memorable). The film revolves around impersonation (which seems to be in the curriculum of every comic star!) - in this case a German officer - and, while not as bad as Leonard Maltin claims (awarding it a BOMB rating), it's not exactly classic stuff either - certainly leagues behind Chaplin's THE GREAT DICTATOR (1940), even if comparably narcissistic! Ironically, the scenes prior to the appearance of the would-be wacky General offer more felicities than the rather forced humor at Nazi expense!

The film was really Lewis' last gasp during his heyday; in fact, this proved to be his last vehicle to be released for 10 years (it's painfully apparent here that his particular brand of foolishness wouldn't pass muster in the age of Mel Brooks and Woody Allen)!

After Which Way To The Front was released Jerry Lewis ceased making films as a star attraction. With a few funny moments involved, there were more eggs laid at this film than a chicken farm on a slow day. It's not a horrible film but it's definitely not among Lewis's best and in the lower tier of his work.

Jerry plays one of the richest men in the world who for some reason I can't fathom wants to serve in the ranks. So it rankles him that he's declared a 4-F something around the time that this film came out many young men would have sold their souls for. As he and three fellow 4-Fs Jan Murray, Steven Franken, and Dack Rambo sit and commiserate about their fate Lewis has a brainstorm. He's rich enough, he'll form his own army and equip it. I will say he designs some snazzy uniforms for his troops which also include his butler John Wood and his chauffeur Willie Davis of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Those flashback sequences involving Murray, Rambo, and Franken are the best part of the film. Even for an audience in the middle of the Vietnam War, those guys all have excellent reasons for wanting to leave their current situations.

Unfortunately the rest of the film isn't as good. The guys train on Lewis's palatial estates, get the best chow any army ever had and then decide on their own mission which is based on Jerry Lewis's resemblance to Field Marshal Kesselring. If you believe their account they actually break the stalemate on the Italian front and later participate in the bomb plot against Hitler.

Hitler was played by Sidney Miller and his scenes with Lewis as Kesselring are taken straight from The Great Dictator. I'm not sure Charlie Chaplin really liked this particular homage.

A lot of World War II film clichés are dealt with here. The coda to this film with Lewis impersonating one of those bucktooth Japanese that were popular at the time I'm not sure was really needed. Nor was it all that funny.

Jerry came up short with this film.

The idea behind "Which Way to the Front" - a millionaire rejected for military service during World War II deciding to form his own army platoon and fight the war his way - is definitely one that is original and has a lot of potential for humor. Unfortunately, the execution here is lacking, to put it kindly. Watching it, I often got the feeling that star and director Jerry Lewis was not trying very hard. For example, while the movie is set in 1943, the movie has a very 1970s feel to it from the costumes to the sets.

A bigger problem is that the movie is simply not that funny, especially in the first half. The movie starts off very slowly, taking both forever to set the situation up and then to get Lewis and his team into the field. And while this is going on, one attempted gag after the other lands with a thud.

The second half of the movie is a bit more successful. There is an injection of serious energy by both Lewis the star and Lewis the director. And this energy does end up generating a few (mild) giggles. (But I certainly didn't laugh at the offensive last scene; you'll see for yourself when you watch the movie.) While there are worse comedies out there (both with or without Lewis), it's easy to see why Warner Brothers only gave the movie a limited release in North America. Though the movie did extremely well in a number of foreign countries, suggesting there's an audience for just about any movie.

"Which Way to the Front?" is a hugely disappointing films...even for die-hard Jerry Lewis fans. I personally WANTED to like the movie, as ever since I got to see Lewis in person a few years ago, I have really come to respect and enjoy his films. But no matter what I think of the guy, I cannot in good conscience give this film a positive review because it makes the biggest mistake of any comedy...it's simply not funny. Additionally, the film is set in WWII and looks as if Lewis didn't even bother trying to make the film look as if it was set in the 1940s. The hair, clothing and sets look straight from 1970!

The film COULD have been funny. It seems that the richest man in the world, Brendan Byers (Lewis) wants to fight in WWII but has been declared 4-F. So, he decides to create his own tiny commando unit and he and his men plan on kidnapping a German Field Marshall who looks exactly like Byers. Each member of the team seem about as manly and menacing as a cannoli and one guy (played by baseball star Willie Davis) is black...and they go behind enemy lines dressed as German soldiers.

I mention that it COULD have been funny. The biggest supposed laughs are when Jerry pretends to be the German Field Marshall---and this mostly just consists of him screaming. It looks like a 7 year-old's idea of what a German SHOULD sound like. As for the Japanese, late in the film Jerry dons big teeth and does an impression that is not only racially offensive but cheap and unfunny. But with no real laughs and the men dressed in what look like 1970 Armani uniforms of orange and bright blue, it just comes off as bizarre and ill-conceived. Even Lewis' worst comedy, "Cracking Up" has ONE hilarious scene (aboard the discount airline)..."Which Way to the Front" has nothing...absolutely nothing that will elicit a laugh in anyone. I truly think that if the audience had no idea who Lewis was, they'd think this movie wasn't even supposed to be a comedy! A film best skipped...especially by Lewis fans. It's so unfunny I can understand why Jerry didn't make another starring vehicle for a decade following this one (aside from the never released and reportedly god-awful, "The Day the Clown Cried").

The idea of a rich man, rejected by the army as 4F, then creating his own military experience, has possibilities. It could be a funny movie.

This wasn't. Lewis' vision of the comic bits has no sense of timing. It moves along at a snail's pace, and includes myriad supporting scenes that just aren't funny. Each scene has a punch line, but most of them were a waste of film. Evidently, firing a mortar and then blandly declaring "We just blew up a Texaco station" just doesn't pack the comedic punch it used to.

Jerry stammering gibberish was barely tolerable in his early days. In this film, it just looks tired.

While the film is set in 1943, hair styles, colloquial expressions, mores, costuming, and just about everything else are firmly rooted in the late 60s.

To get picky, the freeze frame method of ending scenes, as used in this film, is just odd.

I actually got pained looks from my wife when I held on past the first twenty minutes hoping that it would eventually get to the "good part". Twenty-two minutes after that I finally gave in and stopped watching this mess.