Le pantin brisé

Tremendous 1957 film showcasing the life of Joe E. Lewis. After a brief singing career ended, due to Chicago gangsters, Lewis finds another voice in comedy. Nevertheless, he was left an embittered person unable to even be happy around those who loved him dearly.

After playing a junkie in 1955's "The Man With the Golden Arm," Sinatra again gives a wonderful performance as the alcoholic Lewis. He belts out "All the Way" the way that song was supposed to be sung.

Jeanne Crain is in fine form as the wealthy woman who loved him dearly but did not marry him due to his behavior and the advent of World War 11.

The real surprise here is the wonderful supporting performance of Mitzi Gaynor as the chorus girl that Lewis wed on the rebound. Gaynor proved that she could really act as well as sing and dance here. Her drunken scene where she told Lewis off was great.

Eddie Albert got plenty of practice being around alcoholics when he appeared with Susan Hayward twice in "Smash-Up The Story of a Woman," as well as "I'll Cry Tomorrow." Albert plays the part of Lewis' understanding pianist with conviction.

The ending may be a downer but is true to life. At least, Lewis was ready to stand on his feet despite being alone.

"The Joker Is Wild" gives Frank Sinatra probably his best acting assignment playing nightclub-entertainer Joe E. Lewis. After having his throat cut by mobsters in the 20's Chicago, Lewis turned to stand-up comedy after several years of recovery. But his self-destructive ways cause his private life a lot of problems. Frank Sinatra is magnificent in the lead-role given great support by Eddie Albert,Jeanne Crain and especially by Beverly Garland,as Albert's wife. Sinatra had a magnificent hit-song from this movie with "All the Way". One of my favorite recordings of his. It's a shame this movie isn't out on DVD. I hope Paramount will release this gem very soon.The movie should not be missed by any Sinatra fan.

Movie about singer stand-up comedian Joe E. Lewis with Frank Sinatra in the leading role as the beloved and at the same time tragic entertainer who survived a vicious knife attack in Al Capone's Chicago that ended his singing career.

Alone and forgotten years later Joe E. is spotted at the Belmont Race Track by his old friend Swifty Morgan, Jackie Coogan, who thinks that his velvet voice is back,or never really left him. Swifty offers Joe. E a job in a Broadway song and dance number with Sophie Tucker. It turns out that Joe E. is nowhere the singer that he used to be but he had developed a very sharp sense of humor and rapid-fire delivery. That together with a couple of stiff drinks on the stage, to loosen him up, had the night club costumers rolling in the aisles.

We get to see Joe E. Lewis go from being almost forgotten to reaching the top of the entertainment world and then slowly destroying himself and those who loved and cared for him. Like he did to the blood-blooded socialite Letty Page, Jeanne Crain, who wanted to marry Joe E. but finally gave up when Joe E. left her for two years during WWII doing shows and getting drunk, overseas. Marrying showgirl Martha Stewart, not the one that you think but someone else,(Mitzi Gaynor) lasted just two years. As Martha was getting parts in motions pictures Joe E. got drunk doing his night-club act and in the end turned their home into a card playing casino and horse room. With dozens of Joe E.'s friends in attendance where Martha felt that she was a stranger in her own home.

Martha just about had it when she came to visit Joe E. in Vegas, in the middle of making a movie, and got the cold shoulder from him. Joe E. was more interested with the goings on the crap table then with the emotional state of his own wife. Hurt and humiliated by Joe E.'s actions Martha got herself gloriously drunk on a half dozen cocktails told him good-by for the last time and ended up walking, or better yet staggering, out on him for ever.

Joe E. on the stage doing his act really gets hot under the collar when one of the drunk, like himself, and abusive patrons in the audience makes a nasty and snide remark about him and is drunken wife, Martha. That leads Joe E. to get off the stage walk up to him and lay him out together with his friend and on stage piano player Auston Mack, Eddie Albert, who tried to intervene.

"The Joker is Wild" is a movie about the self-destruction of a talented entertainer who was trapped in a bottle because he needed it to preform on stage. At the same time turned him into a drunken an abusive personality that eventually proved to be his biggest enemy by far. More then any of the abusive and obnoxious customers that he had to deal with while he was preforming on stage.

Frank Sinatra as Joe E. Lewis has a chance to sing a number of his biggest hits notably the movie's theme song "All The Way". Sinatra's acting as the troubled and alcoholic comedian is among his best. There's a somewhat up-beat ending with Joe E. seeming to see the light and turn his life around which Joe E. did and outlived the predictions of his doctors who told him that if he didn't stop drinking he'd never live past middle-age. It had been reported from those close to him at the time that in the last years of his life Joe E.Lewis did his night-club act while downing glasses of tea not booze. Still it was obvious that the many years of heavy drinking took a toll on Joe E. Lewis and was a major reason in his not so sudden but very shocking physical deterioration and death.

P.S Joe E Lewish 1971 death certificate it stated that he died of among other things acute alcohol related complication's.

If only this movie was available on DVD! This movie is good for those people who have had major setbacks in life, and need to start over. It reinforced in me the need to make the best of your situation in life.

Frank played the title role impeccably. I think its a travesty that his performance didn't garner him a best actor nomination. That just shows you how superior the actors of that era were in comparison to the actors of today.

Again, I'm befuddled as to why this movie is not available on DVD. Hopefully, it will be more accessible for viewers who know very little of the acting talents of old blue eyes!

Comedian Joe E. Lewis is best remembered as a precursor of comedians like Rodney Dangerfield and Foster Brooks as well as a pal of Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra. The common thread was creating one-liners that had something to do with drunks. He is sometimes confused with Joe E. Brown because of his name, though the two had little in common except being in the show business at about the same time. This film starring Frank Sinatra is therefore a kind of personal homage to a friend, one that would hold little interest as a story unless the viewer knew of the connection in advance. In starts sort of nowhere and goes sort of nowhere, relying for its interest on an unusually literate script and some really good direction and camera work. The best scene is one toward the beginning where Sinatra and a radiant Jeanne Crain meet behind a cyclorama in a theater and flirt with each other as the shadowy figures on the other side of the screen are partying. Twenty-first century viewers will find the dialogue, the sets, and the constant smoking and drinking very curious -- sometimes offensive to modern sensibilities. But that is a characteristic common to many films made between the beginning of "talkies" in about 1930 and the introduction of blockbuster mega-films in the late 1950's and early 1960's. The social diameters and definitions of acceptable behavior for women, black people, drunks, so-called burlesque shows, and "cafe society" and the like were either narrower or broader during that time than they are today. This is definitely not a film made from a play or novel requiring attention to literary unities. Still, it hangs together pretty well for anyone patient enough to concentrate on its more dramatic moments. Look for it on Turner Classic Movies.