Jerry Lewis

Following the death of Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis felt the need to express the outstanding wonderment and gratitude he kept for his former partner. The result was the book: Dean & Me (A love Story). In the book Lewis tells how a probability meeting and introduction with Martin lead to their teaming up with remarkable success. Success that unbelievably took an unknown comic with a pathetic pantomime act and a good, but unnoticed singer from being second class night club entertainers to being the hottest act in the country in a matter of just a few weeks.

With outstanding candor, Lewis describes how success affected each of the men and how their responses to new situations were not always the best selections or the admirable thing to do. For example when they got their original check for twenty-five thousand dollars, they naturally went to the casino rather than compensate the bills and they suffered the predictable results. Or how right after their rise to fame, these two married men had very public affairs with well recognise Hollywood starlets and closely destroyed their careers as well as their marriages.

In the end, after ten years the two men found themselves locked in a movie contract with a producer who could only see them in his idea of a formula for success. Dean always played the rather boring, self centered singer and Jerry the thirty something year old child idiot. They were disillusioned and did the only thing they could, they fulfilled their contracts and walked away not to speak to each other for twenty years.

Lewis proceeds the story to tell how they were publicly brought back together and then renewed their friendship out of the public’s eye.

This book has been around awhile, but I still liked reading it. Some humans might say it was just a book written to take vantage of the advertizing following a celebrities’ death. But it wasn’t. This book was written so a man could candidly tell in regards to his wonderment and gratitude of another man. And to set the record straight in regards to numerous things.

For a baby boomer, like me, this book filled in the gaps in my psychological result of perception learning and reasoning with regards to these two stars from my childhood. And for humans much younger it may give a glimpse at a time when celebrities became celebrities because they could entertain us with their abilities and skills

Jerry Lewis

Contains: The Nutty Professor, The Ladies’ Man, The Delicate Delinquent, Cinderfella, The Bell Boy, The Errand Boy, The Patsy, The Disorderly Orderly, The Family Jewels, and The Stooge.

The other titles include Lewis’s 1957 solo starring debut, The Delicate Delinquent, and his directing bow, The Bellboy (1960). The latter is an often-ingenious and plotless collection of gags with Jerry as a bellhop in Miami Beach’s Fountainebleau Hotel. His reputation doesn’t speak (making the connection with silent cinema more pointed), but in one uproarious sequence the obnoxious movie star “Jerry Lewis” comes to visit the hotel.

The Ladies Man puts Lewis alone in a boarding house full of women. This film’s bizarre sexual politics (and it is astounding cut-away set) helps explain why French critics such as Jean-Luc Godard consider Lewis a cinematic genius–Godard genuinely borrowed the cut-away set idea for his film Tout va bien. The Errand Boy is a cascade of gags strung together on the set of “Paramutual Pictures,” a movie studio that employs Lewis’s klutzy gofer; it features one of Jerry’s best musical miming routines. The Patsy is another good one, as nebbish Jerry is drafted into impersonating a famous deceased celebrity, but by 1965′s The Family Jewels the inspiration is flagging a bit.

Two of the titles are directed by Lewis’s mentor, Frank Tashlin. Cinderfella works a sentimental variation on the fairy tale; it’s slow and at times mawkish, but a heap of of Lewis’s physical stuff is top-notch. The Disorderly Orderly is livelier, with a hospital setting and some of Jerry’s most inspired babbling. The box also includes Lewis’s acknowledged high point, The Nutty Professor, in it is special-edition form. Its Jekyll-and-Hyde story is still the funniest and weirdest premise Lewis ever had. There are other Lewis films out there, but this box is unquestionably the cream of the career. If numerous of the jokes haven’t aged well (and those who can’t stand his mugging won’t be convinced even by this set), Lewis still seems a more interesting filmmaker than he’s commonly given credit for. Extras include numerous disappointing commentaries with Lewis and Steve Lawrence, plus a smattering of outtakes, numerous of them amusive and/or revealing of Lewis’s directing technique. –Robert Horton

Most helpful client reviews

33 of 33 persons found the following review helpful.
Jerry Mon Frer
By Gord Wilson
The author of a recent book in appreciation of Lewis’ film work, Enfant Terrible! notes that he’s been esteemed mainly not in the US but in France, by “those incomprehensible hedonistic strangers all over the sea.” This set affords an prospect to reappraise his standing in the cinema, and I find myself falling in with the hedonistic strangers in appreciation of his significant talents.

29 of 31 humans found the following review helpful.
Le Jerry!
By joseph Corey
I’m thrilled that Paramount has boxed up their 10 Jerry Lewis titles and cut the price. The titles include The Bellboy, Cinderfella, The Delicate Delinquent, The Disorderly Orderly, The Errand Boy, The Family Jewels, The Ladies Man, The Nutty Professor, The Patsy and The Stooge.

I’ve been entertianed by most of these films – having checked out the single releases – but was unwilling to buy them for $15 a pop. But now the price is right and I will be competent to torture my children with Jerry on the loose.

While the bonus features on most aren’t overwhelming, they seem enlightening to grasp what Jerry was doing at the time. He was an innovator using video monitors to aid direct himself.

I do hope Paramount is capable to put out a good low priced boxset of the Jerry Lewis – Dean Martin comedies.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful.
Slapstick Slapschtick
By Mike McCLUSKEY
As a child– I’m 60– my dear mother used to give me a dollar to go to the movies
every Saturday. For that $1, I’d have sufficient to see a Triple-Feature amid Woody
Woodpecker/Mickey Mouse/Stooges’ shorts…buy a soda, a candybar, popcorn and return
home [on a 15-cent bus] with a nickle!
Jerry Lewis was my favorite. Well, here’s YOUR prospect for a bargain.
It may not be the same experience– it MAY cost a little bit more– but, you’ll OWN
the movies!
What a treat; what a bargain!
It’s oftentimes said that Jerry Lewis’s biggest fans are the French; little kids; and…
Jerry Lewis.
I think that Jerry has all the right in the world to have a big ego… he’s EARNED
the right.
I give it TEN STARS– the meter, unfortunatly, only goes to 5.
“Oh Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaadyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!”

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