Più vivo che morto

A young man riding around in a radioactive car is reported as having radiation sickness. But the newspapers got it wrong. So what else is new? But the dying boy (Jerry Lewis) and his venal doctor (Dean Martin) carry on the charade as Lewis (Homer Flagg) get a free trip to New York with all expenses paid. But how long can they keep it up?

Other reviewers focus on the film's long pedigree. So let's focus on the movie.

The best thing about the movie is Fred Clark. This is no insult to Martin or Lewis. Clark and supporting actors like him stole many a movie. Not being leading men gave them more time to think up ways of honing their characterizations to dagger points.

Dean Martin does what he has to: look good and sing well. A little Jerry Lewis goes a long way. And this movie is a long haul with him. One wonders what Janet Leigh did wrong to find herself buried amongst the scene stealers.

Martin and Lewis made better movies. They also made worse movies. I prefer their shorter features to get less fed up with Lewis. At least this film's pedigree means it has a better-than-usual plot for the stars.

Jerry Lewis plays a railroad worker Homer Flagg, who think he's dying on radioactive poisoning in three weeks.Dean Martin is his doctor Steve Harris, who tells him that's not the case.A beautiful New York reporter Wally Cook (Janet Leigh) comes to New Mexico wanting to write a series of articles about this "dying" young man.She takes both Homer and the doc to New York.Homer hasn't bothered the lady with the truth, that he's not actually going to die, because he's always wanted to go to NY.And of course the love sick doctor falls for the pretty reporter and so does Homer.The whole city of New York feels pity for the poor Homer. Norman Taurog's Living It Up (1954) is an extremely funny Jerry Lewis movie from the time he still made a team with Dean Martin.It's not only Jerry who makes you laugh hard, also Dean does that trick.Janet Leigh makes a perfect leading lady in the middle of the clown and the playboy.You can find awfully many funny scenes from the movie, like where Jerry pretends he's a doctor from Paris, Wienna and Hong Kong.He also pretends he's Dean's character while Dean is Jerry.Also the scene on the dance floor with Sheree North is pretty amazing.I saw this movie for the first time in seven years yesterday.It sure brought me back.

LIVING IT UP is a reworking of the Carole Lombard classic NOTHING SACRED now tailored to the talents of the 50's greatest movie team, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Lewis takes on the Lombard role as Homer Flagg, a small town schnook, who after exposure to radiation, believes he is dying and when word spreads all the way to Manhattan of his misfortune, a reporter for a big New York paper decides to treat Homer to a vacation in the Big Apple, sort of a final fling before Homer meets his maker. Martin plays Steve, Homer's doctor, who discovers before the arrival of the reporter, that Homer isn't really dying, but agrees to play along so that Homer can go to New York and is even more willing to play along when he meets the reporter, played by the lovely Janet Leigh. Growing up in the 60's, I had seen Jerry Lewis movies and I had seen Dean Martin movies, but I was almost an adult by the time I learned that they had made movies as a team. This laugh-a-minute comedy was my first exposure to them as a team and it is my favorite outing of theirs and is a part of my permanent video collection. Martin and Lewis are a well-oiled machine and Janet Leigh makes a lovely leading lady There's also a great comic turn by comic veteran Fred Clark as Leigh's boss, whose character name is Oliver Stone! Sheree North also makes a memorable cameo at a jitterbug contest. But this is a Martin and Lewis show all the way, highlights including Dino's crooning of a love song to a photo of Audrey Hepburn and the duo's now classic "Every Street's a Boulevard in Old New York." This is Martin and Lewis in their prime and a comedy classic that's still funny fifty years later.

The strange appeal of the comedy team of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis can perhaps best be understood in this movie, arguably the least off-putting (to scores of people who cannot abide Lewis) of the 17 films the guys made together. Almost all their films contained music, and Martin was a successful singer in his own right. Here he gets to sing "How Do You Speak to an Angel," and "Ev'ry Street's a Boulevard in Old New York" (with Lewis), songs that were already known from the Broadway show on which it is based, "Hazel Flagg." If you want to sample Martin and Lewis, this is arguably the team at its best.

I have always been fond of the score of "Hazel Flagg", and I've always liked this film version of it. But what has always puzzled me is that after Sheree North made a big hit on Broadway dancing in the show, they got her for the movie version, and cut her big dance number, the delightful comedy song "Salomee". She could have re-created her dance ! True, she did one of the show's original songs with Jerry, but they should have kept "Salomee." And Janet Leigh did other musicals, so I'm sure she could have handled Benay Venuta's numbers from the show. Hollywood !!! The story about the media, and fame, and paparazzi is even more timely today, so they should definitely do a re-make as "Hazel Flagg" with the original score.