Who's Minding the Store?

This is one of my favorite Jerry Lewis movies. The cast of characters are funny and talented. I especially enjoyed watching the very sexy secretary, Shirley Lott played by Francesca Bellini in her tight skirts, silk blouses and her gorgeous legs in high heels. Ms. Bellini's key scene was towards the end of the movie when clumsy Norman Phiffer, played by Jerry Lewis was repairing a vacuum cleaner and increased the suction to its highest power and then turned it on. As she got off the elevator with the vacuum out of control and pointed in her direction her skirt was sucked right off her body revealing her gorgeous legs encased only in dark brown silk stockings held up by a black lacey garter-belt over her pretty black panties. Embarrassed, she screamed and ran off to hide. This was Mr.Lewis's trademark in almost every movie where a woman would get her clothes ripped or torn off her to the delight of every male in the audience.

Not my Favorite J.L. Film, (that would be Errand Boy), but delightful, nonetheless. Great physical comedy and some lightweight satire ("a man has to be king of his own ranch style tract home").

The woman who played Jane Hathaway in Beverly Hillbillies makes a cameo appearance as a Big Game Hunter looking for a new rifle in the Sporting Dept., where Jerry's Character is working the counter.

The usual slapstick devices come into play such as the golf bag sch tick (you know, the one), the golf ball going out the window...making, let's just say..multiple bounces along its journey, and of course.

The exercise bicycles on the mattress, and ensuing endurance jog make my side hurt with laughter.

Home sick from work or school, either from a cold or the bad ironic humor that pervades your weekdays? This is your film.

If you don't like Jerry, you have no soul.

I saw this movie at a Sunday matinee in 1963. The movie was so funny that the mere memory of that movie was enough to get me laughing. And I got sent to the principal's office as a result. So you can say that Jerry Lewis got me in trouble in school!

Jerry Lewis is an incompetant errand boy who is engaged to the store owner's daughter. But to get him out of the daughter's life, the store owner turns the screws on the engagement by assigning him the worst jobs. The store owner then moves him from one department to another, leaving massive chaos and destruction everywhere he goes.

The results are hilarious enough. But the aftermath of his time in the appliance department, alone, is worth watching the movie alone. It left me laughing so hard that I had stomach cramps!

I saw the movie again many years later and it was second childhood all over again.

When I turned 16 or so and began to develop a mature sense of aesthetics, the films of Jerry Lewis became anathema to me. Suddenly I couldn't stand him, and that culturally elitist attitude has persisted to the present day. Yet when asked which of the films I've ever seen are the funniest, I have to mention this one. I don't remember much about it -- I saw it in a drive-in on a misty night in 1963 when I was 12 -- but I still recall the scene in the appliance department of the store, with the vacuum cleaner sucking up everything in sight. I don't think I have laughed that hard since -- it's amazing I survived to see the age of 13!

This is one of the funniest films in the career of Jerry Lewis. This film can pretty much be seen as a series of vignettes as Norman bounces around from department to department as he tries to earn enough money to marry the woman he loves. Also, the rest of the cast give solid performances especially John McGiver, Ray Walston and Agnes Moorehead. Walston is great as the weasel of a store manager who does everything he can to break Norman. McGiver is outstanding as Mr. Tuttle who in the process of the film turns from a milquetoast to a tiger as he finally stands up to his wife, Phoebe. However, Agnes Moorehead is perfect as Phoebe Tuttle and she pretty much plays a mortal version of Endorra, the character she would play less than a year later on "Bewitched".

However, the one negative criticism of the film that I have is the fact that like what a couple of other commentators said was the fact that this film is pretty much takes great joy in bashing women. Other than that this is a great film.