Au boulot... Jerry!

"Hardly Working" was heralded for being Jerry Lewis's first film in a decade. After seeing the final results maybe he should have waited longer. I loved Lewis films as a kid and wondered if perhaps I had just outgrown him. Watching some of his older films up against this one convinced me that it was the movie and not my maturing. "Hardly Working" is a bad film. It's poorly written and ineptly directed.

The film's best scene is its first as we see a brief montage of clips from past Lewis movies. Trust me there is nothing close to being this amusing once the film gets going. But it does get going and we see Jerry as the lovable loser who can't hold a job. He starts as a circus clown and soon gets fired and for good reason. The one scene we see him as the clown is painfully unfunny. He then moves into a succession of jobs that he gets himself fired from. One scene in particular shows how clumsy the script is. He has been hired to work at a gas station. His new boss is setting up a pyramid of cans that Jerry (of course) keeps knocking over. The exasperated boss finally sends Jerry out to serve a customer and (of course) can't even fill the gas tank without causing havoc. What does the boss do? He knocks the same pyramid of cans over that he has struggled over and over to build. Why? You tell me.

The bulk of the film has Jerry as a mailman. Certainly there are funnier things they could have come up with then sagging pickle spears and donut jokes and multiplying rabbits within the postal service. "Hardly Working" is a lame comedy that picks up where Lewis left off with his lame comedies of the late 60's.

I saw this when it was first released, in a theater filled to the gills with rabid Jerry Lewis fans (of which I am one) who were all ecstatic to be seeing a new Jerry Lewis movie after all those years. The opening montage of scenes from his earlier films was greeted with cheers, and this giddy enthusiasm carried over for the rest of the film. (The donut scene was a particular favorite--everybody there totally "got" it.) Good spirits and joyous Jerry Lewis fandom abounded in that theater that night, and I had a wonderful time.

Whenever I see this movie now, I recall the feelings I had when I first saw it that night. Maybe you had to see it in that context and that frame of mind to truly enjoy it. Anyway, I'm still a huge Jerry Lewis fan as I have been all my life, and I enjoy all of his movies from the highs of THE NUTTY PROFESSOR and THE LADIES MAN to the lows of WHICH WAY TO THE FRONT? and HOOK, LINE, AND SINKER. Now if I could just see THE DAY THE CLOWN CRIED, my life would be complete.

"Hardly Working" came at a rough period in Jerry Lewis' film career. His two previous films were a decade earlier. "Which Way to the Front?" is among the comedian's worst films and his next one, "The Day the Clown Cried", is notorious and was never even released. Then came "Hardly Working". Not a particularly good film but an improvement over his next film "Cracking Up". If these were the only Lewis films you ever saw, you'd be very unlikely to see any more. Fortunately, he did have some excellent films...but this period is clearly his lowest.

When the film begins, Bo (Lewis) learns that the circus where he works is closing. Without a job, he moves in with his sister (Susan Oliver) and her husband (Roger Carmel). However, he does not endear himself to the brother-in-law because he keeps losing job after job after job. So, in desperation the brother-in-law helps him get a job working for the Post Office.

Much of the film is very episodic--with little vignettes where he loses jobs. Some of these are funny, some (such as the disco sequence) are too long and horribly unfunny. There was even one where he got a job as a chef in a Japanese restaurant. Seeing Jerry with giant fake teeth doing a Japanese man impersonation is something to behold! And I do NOT mean that in a good way!! Often the biggest problem was the timing...with scenes being way too long and losing all sense of momentum. Overall, the film is a very hit or miss affair...which perhaps a few too many misses. For his fans, it's well worth seeing but for others I recommend you see one of his better films, such as a Martin & Lewis picture or "The Bellboy" or "The Delicate Delinquent".

By the way, the film was made around Palm Beach, Florida...just north of Miami and Ft. Lauderdale. I am not sure why this location was chosen instead of the more familiar Los Angeles area.

I watched this movie and LOVED it!! It might not be Jerry's best but it is still a very good movie. Just because one person viewed the movie and did not care for it does not mean that everyone should write it off as a bad movie...Please, watch this movie and form your own opinion. I LOVE JERRY LEWIS!!!!

I've never given a review before but after reading all the crappy reviews written by people and downing this movie, I had to. I simply couldn't believe the number of negative reviews for this movie.

This movie was VERY funny if you're into nutty comedy which I am.

There's a scene where Jerry is working in this club and he's trying to pour these drinks while next to the stage where a woman is dancing and he just can't take his eyes off this gal and he's missing the cups while pouring and it's so funny.

Another scene is one that when I first saw it I thought I'd actually die from laughter. Jerry is in an office applying for a job at a Postal Office and the Chief is talking to him and the whole time a box of duncan donuts is sitting on the desk and Jerry is trying to NOT look at it and trying to pay attention to the chief at the same time and finally Jerry reaches over and touches the powdered one and kind of runs his finger down the donut and the chief asks "would you like a donut?" and Jerry immediately says "where are they?". And I think the chief says take a half or something like that and Jerry grabs one takes a bite out of it and then puts it back as to change his mind and grabs another one.

Jerry Lewis is very funny and this movie is GREAT. Watch it, love it, dig it. You wont be disappointed unless you've got a donut stuck up your humor hole. In that case, there's no hope for you anyway. Stick with Action and drama in that case and leave the comedy loving to me and others.