Who's Minding the Store?

This is one of my favorite Jerry Lewis movies. The cast of characters are funny and talented. I especially enjoyed watching the very sexy secretary, Shirley Lott played by Francesca Bellini in her tight skirts, silk blouses and her gorgeous legs in high heels. Ms. Bellini's key scene was towards the end of the movie when clumsy Norman Phiffer, played by Jerry Lewis was repairing a vacuum cleaner and increased the suction to its highest power and then turned it on. As she got off the elevator with the vacuum out of control and pointed in her direction her skirt was sucked right off her body revealing her gorgeous legs encased only in dark brown silk stockings held up by a black lacey garter-belt over her pretty black panties. Embarrassed, she screamed and ran off to hide. This was Mr.Lewis's trademark in almost every movie where a woman would get her clothes ripped or torn off her to the delight of every male in the audience.

TEX AVERY in flesh and blood, that was Jerry Lewis for me, who usually hates comedies. But here, it is an absolute must see, directed by a very inspired Frank Tashlin, one of the Hollywood comedy magicians, especially for "visual" comedies. With Jerry Lewis, they fit together as Lon Chaney Sr with Tod Browning or Alain Delon and Lino Ventura with Jean-Pierre Melville. The magic formula, fantastic recipe which the result can be seen with this film. The ending could be seen as some kind of satire of the consumerism, modern consumerism. I guess it was shown in the Soviet Union, to criticize the American way of life. And I was very amused by one of the character's name: Quimby; a tribute, for me, to Fred Quimby, the famous TEX AVERY cartoon creator.

I saw this movie at a Sunday matinee in 1963. The movie was so funny that the mere memory of that movie was enough to get me laughing. And I got sent to the principal's office as a result. So you can say that Jerry Lewis got me in trouble in school!

Jerry Lewis is an incompetant errand boy who is engaged to the store owner's daughter. But to get him out of the daughter's life, the store owner turns the screws on the engagement by assigning him the worst jobs. The store owner then moves him from one department to another, leaving massive chaos and destruction everywhere he goes.

The results are hilarious enough. But the aftermath of his time in the appliance department, alone, is worth watching the movie alone. It left me laughing so hard that I had stomach cramps!

I saw the movie again many years later and it was second childhood all over again.

When I turned 16 or so and began to develop a mature sense of aesthetics, the films of Jerry Lewis became anathema to me. Suddenly I couldn't stand him, and that culturally elitist attitude has persisted to the present day. Yet when asked which of the films I've ever seen are the funniest, I have to mention this one. I don't remember much about it -- I saw it in a drive-in on a misty night in 1963 when I was 12 -- but I still recall the scene in the appliance department of the store, with the vacuum cleaner sucking up everything in sight. I don't think I have laughed that hard since -- it's amazing I survived to see the age of 13!

"Who's Minding the Store?" is a movie that is so stupid its funny. This film contains scenes that are incredibly dim-witted. Other scenes are dumber than dumb. But I found myself laughing at what was going on. I haven't seen alot of Jerry Lewis movies with the exception of a few including this one. "Who's Minding the Store?" stars Lewis as Norman Pfeiffer, a hapless young man who works as a poodle dog walker and animal sitter. He is engaged to be married to a lovely young woman named Barbara played by Jill St. John (before she became a Bond woman in "Diamonds Are Forever"). Barbara works at a department store as an elevator operator. One day she goes to visit Norman while dog-sitting, and she breaks the news to him that her bosses want Norman to come work at the store. Norman is thrilled to get the chance to work close to his girl, and (foolishly) accepts the job. However, what Barbara doesn't know is that this is a scheme by her mother Phoebe Tuttle (played by "Bewitched" star Agnes Moorehead), who just happens to be the store owner. Phoebe is not happy one bit that her daughter is engaged to this imbecile. So she orders the store manager Mr. Quimby (Ray Walston) to give Norman the hardest, most impossible jobs to do so that he'll quit his new job and hopefully end up breaking off his engagement to Barbara. The jobs that Norman does in this film are unbelievable, and in the process ends up turning the store upside down into a disaster area. I laughed, and laughed, and laughed, at the stupidity of what went on and I couldn't help it. This movie cracks me up (interesting, because 20 years after Lewis made this he made a movie titled oddly enough "Cracking Up"). I feel kind of guilty admitting that I like this film, but I did.

*** (out of four)