Jumping Jacks

With more of an accent on comedy than romance, Jumping Jacks turns out to be more of a Jerry Lewis than a Dean Martin picture. Usually Dean got one or two good songs in one of their films, here he got none and didn't even bother to record any of the material written by Mack David and Jerry Livingston.

But Jerry got a ton of laughs as the former comedy partner of Dino who's been drafted into the army and is now a paratrooper. Dino's got himself a nice lush assignment there, he's got to put on a talent show and maybe get himself a permanent berth doing that sort of thing if he can only impress General Ray Teal. But the amateur talent Dino has from the army pool has its limits.

What to do but trick is hapless former partner into visiting him on the base at Fort Benning and take the place of one of the other soldiers and be in the show. It works only too well as Teal singles out Lewis and really loves the idea of the show traveling to other bases as is. Now the Airborne Rangers are stuck with Jerry Lewis.

And Dino and the rest of the guys are stuck with keeping the con up, to the extent of fooling their new sergeant Robert Strauss. Watching Strauss we get an idea of what his character the Animal must have been like before he became a prisoner at Stalag 17. He and Lewis form a curious bond.

Speaking of Stalag 17 another cast member from that great film that would be coming from Paramount a year after Jumping Jacks is Richard Erdman. Erdman if you'll remember played barracks chief Sergeant Hoffman in Billy Wilder's classic. In Jumping Jacks if Jerry Lewis is the Schlemiel, Erdman is the Schlamazel as Dogface Dolan, the soldier who Jerry takes the identity of. Erdman cuts himself in for quite a few laughs himself.

The service comedy stuff is reworked a lot from previous films, Buck Privates and Keep 'Em Flying from Abbott&Costello come to mind. The finale is straight from Keep 'Em Flying. But I do like the way Lewis distinguishes himself in the war games which has some really good moments for Jerry.

Still the weakness of Jumping Jacks is Martin is relegated almost to the side. You know that when the best number in the film is done by Mona Freeman and Jerry Lewis at the beginning, A Boy In A Uniform.

Paramount and Hal Wallis brought Dean and Jerry and the whole crew to Fort Benning, Georgia, the army's Airborne Headquarters to shoot the film. I'm sure the troops we see here who were no doubt on the way to Korea liked getting in the movies.

Jumping Jacks is a good Martin&Lewis comedy, but definitely more Lewis than Martin.

Wow...talk about your contrived plots! The film begins with Jerry and his female partner working on their stage act. Out of the blue, Jerry gets a cryptic letter--telling him her was needed for government business. When he goes to where the letter tells him, he finds out his old partner (Dean) needs him to help him put on some sort of show for the army. It seems that Dean is now a paratrooper and plans on having Jerry take on the identity of a guy in his unit so they can put on a show together. While this idea is ridiculous, it's even more so when Jerry is stuck in the paratroopers and cannot get out--even though he really wants to.

This film finds Jerry Lewis at his most spastic and even louder than usual--making you wonder how anyone could possibly mistake him for a soldier (or human)! In addition, because of the performing angle, there are a larger than usual number of musical numbers--along with dancing and other choreography. If you like this, you're in luck. As for me, this mix created a less satisfying sort of Martin & Lewis film. Fortunately, the film was saved (somewhat) by the notion of idiot Jerry accidentally succeeding and becoming a great soldier! But to me, this isn't enough to make this anything other than a loud time-passer.

Starting in 1949 and through the early 1950s, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis made 16 films together. Their match-up is the familiar one of comedy teams. A straight man, who often gets the gal, and a goof-up, klutz or clown. So, we had had Laurel and Hardy, Crosby and Hope, and Martin and Lewis.

This is one of the earlier Martin-Lewis comedies. As with most of their films, Dean's singing and their comedy routines play in the plot. So, we get a little singing and dancing along with a wacky story of sorts. After Chick (Martin) goes in the Army, Hap Smith (Lewis) finds himself a female partner for a new show. But before they can get launched in the big time, Chick calls for help that only Hap can provide. So, he sneaks on base to help with a show for the troops.

Well, it's not hard to imagine what happens from there on. The base is a fictitious one, of course, but for this one Paramount did some film shooting at Ft. Benning, GA, and the Army parachute school.

While this and similar films still bring a chuckle here and there, they don't seem as funny as they must have been to audiences in the mid- 20th century. I remember watching these in theaters as a youngster. Slapstick can still be good and very funny, but I think the comedy with actors completely changing their voices was a phase from that period that hasn't lasted.

This film is OK for some laughs and the music and comedy. The rest of the cast provide nice support for the two leads.

It's a great sorrow and continual grief in my heart to say this picture was miles away from the best pictures of the remarkable duo Lewis and Martin, sadly I have to confess even I'm a big fan of Jerry Lewis, it disappointed me entirely, the plot is unplugged and complex, nothing making sense at all, Dino singing along the movie is worst on those old fashionable and awful songs, even on those fancy sets, not enough romance allowed, just few scenes with Mona Freeman, they concentrated forces on military exercises and parachutes jumps, a sort of Army propaganda, has a minimal funny scenes which can be counted on the fingers of a single hand, the few number of votes at IMDB and rare reviews can justify such veracity, also almost all movies from Jerry Lewis were dubbed in Brazil and curiously it wasn't, why?? It's too easy explainable, the picture wasn't enough good!!

Resume:

First watch: 2019 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 6.

"Jumping Jacks" is an okay time killer. It has a few laughs and a few smiles but nothing very memorable. I enjoy Jerry Lewis (I saw him perform at Westbury (NY) Music Fair when he was ninety years old. It was a fun show.) and Dean Martin. But I enjoy them separately. As team, at least in their movies, they also fall flat with me. "Jumping Jacks" is better than their other movies but that's not saying much. "Jumping Jacks" has a good story and the supporting cast is likeable. It does have some funny moments but from some reason the movie started to feel long. And then it felt even longer. It should have been fifteen minutes shorter.