The Disorderly Orderly

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 ****

I can watch Jerry Lewis films over and over again and still get the full laugh effect. This one finds him as an orderly in a mental hospital (!) where he manages to fumble everything from breakfast to scrubbing the floors. He meets a destitute patient (Susan Oliver) and then the fun begins. These sequences provide a little of the film's serious side but overall the slapstick and Jerry's mugging are hilarious. Even the kids will get a hoot out of this. Highly recommended for family viewing.

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.

This is the kind of movie most Lewis fans cite when talking about his best.

And why not? "The Disorderly Orderly" pairs Lewis with a good director (Tashlin), apt foils (especially Freeman), supremely funny moments (check out his "sympathy pains") and just the right amount of bathos in spots to give his character not just a clown but a good-hearted, hard-working, sympathetic clown.

And as most come to expect with this kind of movie, slapstick is the prevalent language throughout and if you don't speak it, you won't understand it here. I do, and I did.

See, and they said he wouldn't make it without Dean.

Eight stars. Classic slapstick carnage with a classic slapstick idol.

This time Jerry Lewis is a hospital worker.Now that doesn't sound right.When Jerry is trying to do his job, it's always a disaster.This Jerome Littlefield, that Jerry plays, is in love with one patient.And there is also a nurse, that likes Jerome. Disorderly Orderly is a terrific Jerry Lewis comedy. Just hilarious.