A vehicle for the comedy duo of Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin, one that's got a little bit of everything, and in vibrant Technicolor no less. There were a lot of ideas crammed into this film, not all of which work, but they're executed with a lot of energy. Here you'll find musical numbers, Lewis's wacky humor, topical issues, and cultural references, all helped along considerably by the women in the cast, including Dorothy Malone, Shirley MacLaine, Anita Ekberg, and Eva Gabor. In fact, it's MacLaine who pulls off the best scene when she reprises the song Innamorata on the staircase, one that's choreographed beautifully for both laughs and sex appeal as she throws herself at Lewis.
It's a film that families can watch, but it sneaks in quite a bit of sexual innuendo, something that amused me. There's an erection reference in the dickey of Lewis's evening clothes continuing to pop up - "I can't keep this dickey down, Ricky" he says as it springs up to slap him in the face. There's the funny scene where he and Martin get twisted up in knots with two women at the massage parlor. There's the suave Martin rubbing lotion into the back of the prone Malone while serenading her, and Lewis's vision for a comic strip including the alluring villain Zuba the Magnificent, who "uses her body like a pair of pontoons." There's the publisher's always-hungry lover, who he passes off as his niece, cousin, or daughter, depending on what comes to mind.
Perhaps unintentionally(?), there's also a fair bit of homoeroticism in the relationship between the two leads. Lewis's character "likes girls," but he's also effeminate and adores Martin's character, cooking for him in an apron, welling up in a tear when he threatens to move out, and walking into the bathroom while he's in the bathtub. After playing a wild game of charades trying to convey a message to him, he even jumping into the water, almost causing Martin to break character. Later he gives him two kisses on the cheek, one from a woman, the other "from me."
There are a lot of fun little bits dropped into the script, starting with the Bat Lady and the dangers of comic books, which predated the dangers of television, the internet, and cell phones, and had ushered in the Comics Code the previous year. We get bits of the Cold War and a couple of years before Sputnik, get a prefetch of the Space Race ("We can safely predict our nation will be the first to break through the Earth's gravitational pull and establish a space station" ... oops on both counts). There's a Rear Window reference complete with Jimmy Stewart accent, an allusion to President Eisenhower's fondness for golfing, a meta reference to Martin's success with That's Amore, and Martin imitating one of Lewis's bits by crossing his eyes while yelling at him.
It was a bit exhausting keeping up with the film, but sweet little moments like Martin singing The Lucky Song with little kids, help with that. I might have liked it even more without the spy plotting towards the end, but Jerry Lewis tickles me with his screwball zaniness and this came with the package.
