Par où t'es rentré? On t'a pas vu sortir

"How Did You Get In? We Didn't See You Leave" is not just a movie with an odd title, but it's one that was simply unavailable in the USA until recently. Why? Because the leading man, Jerry Lewis, stipulated in his contract that the film NOT be released in the States. I can only assume it is because he thought it would be a bomb and that the French were generally far better disposed towards him and his sort of humor. Well, despite this, the movie is currently posted on YouTube...with English subtitles.

This film finds Jerry Lewis playing Clovis Blaireau, a private detective. A middle-aged woman wants to divorce her husband and apparently in France contested divorces are not granted. So she wants Clovis to get incriminating photos of him with another woman....though she herself is already cheating on her husband. So Clovis pretends that he's a long lost friend of the husband and the pair soon are out getting into all sorts of nonsense....and women. But because Clovis is a complete incompetent, every time he snaps a photo of the husband with another woman, he somehow screws up...and this simple task goes on and on and on through the movie. Later, he and the husband end up on the run and are assumed to be mobsters from the Mafia. Why and what happens next is something you should find out yourself.

While I'd never say that Jerry Lewis' humor is subtle nor sophisticated, in "How Did You Get In? We Didn't See You Leave" the jokes are even less subtle than usual and Lewis deserved better than this ineptly written and directed movie. I simply cannot understand why he agreed to make it. Was he in desperate financial straits back in the 1980s? I just know if Lewis had directed it himself, as he was wont to do back in the 1960s, it had to have been better. Now this isn't to say there are no laughs in this movie. Once or twice, I actually thought mildly funny things happened in the story...though most of the time the laughs were cheap and unfunny. The best example of cheap and unfunny is the beginning of the film, where Clovis' office is located under a suite where fat ladies are exercising and Clovis' office keeps bouncing like a herd of elephants are dancing above...which is really unfunny and cruel and poorly done. The same with Jerry pretending to be Japanese...complete with gigantic teeth....uggh!

Overall, a waste of time and talent....and after seeing it, I can understand why Lewis refused to allow this film to be released in the USA. It's simply a terrible film with only a few tiny bits that ALMOST made me laugh...almost.

This film is available to watch on Youtube. It's actually better than many of Lewis' other movies, including his comeback film, "Hardly Working", and several of his films with Dean Martin. WAY better than "Don't Lower the Bridge..." or "Slapstick of a Different Kind." I'd say it's about on par with "Way Way Out", except more consistently gag-oriented and lower budget. I really cannot imagine why Lewis wants to withhold distributing this film, given his real Hollywood bombs in the past. The editing is clumsy and it doesn't have the manic impact typical of Lewis' films; he and Frank Tashlin did know best how to focus on a Lewis-character when he was on a roll. On the other hand, I found this film droll and amusing all the way through, without any need to fast-forward. On the other hand...

Perphaps the lowest point in Jerry Lewis's career. In the early eighties, he tried to revive his career by starring in some french movies, because he still had some following there (not anymore, I hast to say) Alas, he made the mistake of working with two of France's lowest comedy directors, Michel Gérard (who made with him "Retenez-moi ou je fais un malheur") and Philippe Clair, director of the present jewel. While Gérard's pictures were dumb but innocuous, Clair's were the most outrageously vulgar, shrill, crass movies ever to soil a french screen. Philippe Clair started as a minor comic actor playing a stereotypical jewish "pied-noir" (the pied-noir are the frenchmen born in Algeria while this it was a french territory) But he gained true fame as the country's crassest comedy director from the early 70s to hte late 80s. Here Lewis plays lousy detective Clovis Blaireau, and -hold yourself - he is awfully dubbed in french with a heavy "pied-noir" accent. Part of the film relies on the comical side of the pied-noir folklore, which is so alien to Lewis that it takes an almost surreal quality. Philippe Clair was so happy to have lured Lewis into his fiasco that he gave himself second billing, and acts as Lewis's sidekick and accomplishes the feat of making him look like a subtle performer. The rest of the cast consists of regulars from French shclock cinema like Marthe Villalonga and Jackie Sardou. It is nice, however, to see american performer Jess Hahn popping up as a baddy in one of his last roles. Watch also for Connie Nielsen in one of her first parts ! She's gone a logn way since then, with "Gladiator"... In summary, the film is a loud, dumb pile of trash that nevertheless did rather well at the time in France and north african countries. Jerry Lewis was hoping the french would salvage his career but instead they nailed the last hole in its coffin !!

To enjoy this, you must be either drunk, or mentally challenged, or hate Lewis so much that you're ready to submit yourself to the ordeal of seeing this crap just in order to watch him humiliate himself in an unbelievable turd. If you like Jerry Lewis, though, (and unless you're an absolute completist) it is a real torture to watch !