Parachutiste malgré lui

This is another Martin & Lewis movie I watched on YouTube. Two years after At War with the Army, they're back there although Jerry's only there because Dean needs his old performing partner back to put on a show. Mona Freeman is Lewis' new partner back in New York where they're supposed to prepare for a Broadway show. So Jerry's there under false pretenses and...oh, watch the movie to see how it all turns out. In chronologically reviewing this iconic team's movies, I've mentioned when their leading ladies did another film with them. Now I can say what male co-stars have made return appearances: First, there's Robert Strauss-previously their superior officer in their last picture Sailor Beware-once again as their sergeant who eventually warms up to Lewis. Then there's Don DeFore-previously Dean's rival in My Friend Irma-as one of Dean and Jerry's fellow privates. Since there's a show business angle involved, there's plenty of musical numbers with Dean either by himself with some dancers or with Jerry clowning around. Jerry himself has a number with Ms. Freeman though her singing voice is dubbed by Imogene Lynn. In summary, this was quite hilarious to me with Dean himself, for once, getting almost as equal laughs as Jerry especially during that lunch-on-a-train sequence with Strauss and another actor named Richard Erdman who's character Lewis is impersonating. So on that note, I highly recommend Jumping Jacks.

So, Martin & Lewis came out near the end of the slapstick comedy era. They were the last of the great classic comedians, that grew out of vaudeville and kept the sub-genre of the slapstick comedy alive for 50 years. In the silent era of film, you had the likes of, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd. In the 1930s and 40s, it was names like, Laurel and Hardy, the Marx Brothers, The Three Stooges and Abbott and Costello, who reigned as kings on the slapstick stage. Martin and Lewis would debut in the movie theaters in 1949 and dominated the 1950s. But, by 1956 (oddly enough the same year that Abbott and Costello broke up), Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis called it quits. This left the decaying bones of the slapstick sub-genre to low-budget films, mostly made by the aged Three Stooges, Jerry Lewis' solo career and a small resurgence of new comedians on television, that kept the sub-genre alive until its untimely death in the 1970s.

This film is a textbook example of what a great Martin and Lewis film looked like. Dean and Jerry were huge in the 1950s. They had crowds show up to their Atlantic City, New Jersey shows, like Elvis was in town. They were big in the movies and on television. This film follows the same formula, that the old Abbott and Costello war films were like. The difference with this one was the Korean War was going on and it was a different attitude in the 1950s. They weren't trying to sell war bonds, so much as, just make a comedy about basic training and war games. Dean (as Chick Allen), is a corporal in the Army, who is part of the para-troopers and also used to do a nightclub act back in the states. In a desperation move to put on a great show, he asks for the assistance of his old fellow performer, Jerry (as Hap Smith), which unfortunately ends in Hap getting pulled into training camp and becoming, accidently, a para-trooper himself. It is hilarious watching Hap, who has no business being near the Army, get through this film without getting himself killed. Dean throws in some great songs and this film is a classic in a sub-genre still at its peak.

7.3 (C+ MyGrade) = 7 IMDB.

Jumping Jacks though early in the careers of Martin and Lewis personified and solidified the act as comedians. Though it was relatively the end of their comedy team, this movie only proved they had more fun and slap stick to come. Fantastic laugh a minute movie with a few Martin songs which are equally as good. If you have never seen a Martin and Lewis movie this is the one to see.

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.

Very unrealistic and a bad outing for Martin and Lewis. A couple of funny scenes but plot makes no sense. What kind of a show can be put on in military compound that looks like a Broadway show with a "stage" thats goes on and on. No way could that first musical number fit on a real stage. And the impersonation of a Paratrooper by Lewis is inane. Martin meets Mona Freeman and in one scene they're in love and want to get married.!!!! Fantasy pure and simple although its all meant to be REAL. Stupid, stupid stupid.