User reviews

I understand the book this is "adapted" from was not great by any means, but I don't think a book could possibly be this bad.

The description for the movie does no justice in describing this atrocity. Twins are birthed from the loins of two "beautiful" people, only they look like Sasquatch sized creatures from another world (oops, spoilers! Oh wait no one will care). They apparently seem smart together but the film gives us little insight into that. On one hand, we do get tons and tons of bad vignettes of people well past their prime trying to be funny. Jerry Lewis seemingly shaped this after Blazing Saddles, but took out any social commentary, acting prowess and humor.

The worst part is all of the actors look like they are being confronted by existential dread. They probably saw the dailies and were horrified. Apparently the weirdo that made this film also made Baby Geniuses. No wonder it was so terrible. There is a morbid curiosity of seeing a train wreck like this, but most people have better things to do with their lives.

"Slapstick of Another Kind" is a surprise to watch. After all, I've never seen it included on a list of the worst movies ever made...but clearly it deserves to be there. Obviously SOMEONE thought the film was god-awful, as the studio shelved it for two years before ultimately releasing it! This is because this film is super- bizarre, totally unfunny and an awful chore to watch. Rarely have I ever seen anything THIS tedious and awful!! And, as far as entertainment goes, I think it's preferable to stare at vomit for 90 minutes than watch this movie.

When the film begins, there is a really crappy outer space scene where disembodied beings talk about sending twins to the United States to help them out. Apparently, they sent two to China but with poor results. As for the Chinese, they are all just a few inches high and fly about in UFOs!

When the children are born to their rich and sophisticated parents, they are hideous and the doctor (Frankenstein...ha, ha?!) advises the parents to abandon them to his care. And for 15 years, they are pretty much left on their own while the servants just party. During this time, on their own, they learn a billion and one things and are very bright--but they look and act really stupid much of the time. In fact, it's insultingly awful, as the film appears to make fun of the intellectually challenged.

Later, the President of the United States arrives in Air Force One (powered by chicken crap) because the Chinese tell everyone the twins are 'America's greatest resource'...and things don't go very well during the visit. What happens next? Who cares....but see this film if you must!

Not one bit of this film is the least bit funny or worthy of your attention. It's loud, boorish and annoying from start to finish. A god-awful mess of a film that NEVER should have been released and marks one of the lowest points in cinematic history. While almost no one has seen Jerry Lewis' "The Day the Clown Cried" (as he refuses to allow it to be released because, presumably, it's THAT bad), it cannot be as awful as this film he and Madeline Kahn made- -presumably because someone was holding them captive or threatening to shoot their families.

Air Force One, apparently, isn't the only thing running on chicken crap!

This movie is so tragically bad; that you feel sorry for those involved. Adapted from a Kurt Vonnegut story, with some big name talents in the cast, the story is destroyed by a lame script, no slapstick or any comedy of any kind, and stars given nothing to work with. Jerry Lewis and Madeline Kahn play aliens who have a message for the world, and encounter evil everywhere--a depressing premise to start with. Versatile Pat Morita is wasted on a mean-spirited, stereotypical little loudmouth character that isn't the least bit funny--only irritating. Marty Feldman, Orson Welles, and Jim Backus have parts they probably hid from their resumes too. One recurring joke is that excrement is a new fuel source; this sad attempt at humor was as close to a laugh as you get. The film has only one worth while moment: a touching scene near the end where you actually get a chance to feel something for the two characters who have been mercilessly hurt throughout the movie. An unfunny comedy that will just leave you feeling empty.

With huge talents such as Jerry Lewis & Madeline Kahn I thought this movie was going to be gas, sitting in my favorite chair ready to laugh...NEVER DID. Movie made me ill, The directors & producers of this film should be arrested for letting this "VOMIT" on the screen.

The concept of having Jerry Lewis as a space alien could have been funny (See Visit to a Small Planet) which wasn't that funny either, but it wasn't crap like this. I've seen bad movies, like "Manos Hands of Fate", "Gigli", "Plan 9 From Outer Space", and many other terrible films, but with the exception of "Gigli", this is the worst movie I have ever seen, I truly had to take Maalox after this one. How in the Hell did they get The KING of Comedy, Jerry Lewis, and one of the funniest ladies to ever live Madeline Kahn to star in this bag of Dung?

They must have owed favors to the producers or something, because this movie really bit the big one.

Pardon My French, but It Sucked!

Slapstick of Another Kind (1982)

1/2 (out of 4)

Jerry Lewis and Madeline Kahn play a married couple who give birth to a twin boy and girl (also played by Lewis and Kahn). Sadly for the parents, these two kids are really ugly, stupid and deformed. It turns out that an alien took control of the pregnancy to try and force these two kids to teach the world something because when the twins but their heads together they become super smart.

Wow, what a complete and utter misfire this thing turned out to be. It's rather shocking to see how awful SLAPSTICK OF ANOTHER KIND is and it's even more shocking to see Lewis on The Tonight Show in 1984 trying to sell the movie. It's easy to see why they didn't spend too much time on that show discussing this movie because it's quite awful and even Lewis didn't do a very good job at selling it. The film was released in Europe two years before it's American debut but I doubt even this thing could fool fans over there.

There are all sorts of problems with this movie including the fact that it just looks downright cheap and poorly produced. I really don't know what they were going for or what they were trying to do but the screenplay is just one giant mess. I mean, there are some below-the-belt jokes that I personally didn't find offensive but it's funny to think that anyone would have read them on the script and thought that they would have worked. What's even worse is the fact that I only laughed twice throughout the running time.

How does a movie with Lewis, Kahn, Marty Feldman, John Abbott, Samuel Fuller, Pat Morita and Merv Griffin go so terribly wrong? It certainly proves that no matter how great a cast you get if the screenplay is bad your movie is going to turn out the same way. Both Lewis and Kahn get an A for effort but there's just nothing here for their talents. Feldman is completely wasted in his role but I will say that Abbott gets a couple decent moments as Dr. Frankenstein as does Fuller as Colonel Sharp.

SLAPSTICK OF ANOTHER KIND tries to mix comedy and sci-fi but it's really an awful picture from start to finish.

Vonnegut novels have proven time and again very difficult to translate to film. For whatever reason, the subtlety and humanity of the novels get lost or scrambled in the interpretation. And this is probably the most glaring example.

Missing most of the point of the book and pulling focus from any reflection on loneliness or the absurdity of modern life and putting that energy into seeing Jerry Lewis interact with a poorly SFX overlay fortune-cookie-shaped UFOs. Which is the tip of the iceberg in terms of the high key racism in the film.

An arguably stellar cast gets mostly wasted on a joyless slog through a story that feels only tenuously adjacent to the source material.

I was too young when it came out to notice, but it's hard to imagine this seeing some release in the same year that Ghostbusters came out. It feels like it was made in a different decade, in a different dimension. I feel like this film and Heartbeeps bring similar grim energies. Both films I find interesting in their approach. Both intended to be comedies with heartfelt messages at the core, and both of them leaving you with a forlorn emptiness. If you absolutely love the book, maybe don't seek this out. If you want to see a big weird mess, then go for it.

I got this movie really cheap at blockbuster and we watched it a few years ago. REALLY BAD! When I first saw this movie I thought it was the worst movie possible. Not only was the acting and the story and the jokes HORRIBLE but it gave me a headache to watch. I have not read the book and supposedly that is good, I don't see how it could be with a story like that though. There was nothing good about this movie. I rate it a 1 out of 10. I don't see how it is possible to make a movie like this and believe that in any way it will be successful or even entertaining. I cant even imagine how people were at the premier of this movie.

I stumbled on a mention of this movie after Jerry Lewis died. Based on a Vonnegut book, I expected something different and was not disappointed in that respect. It really impressed me as something that they just threw together in real time, just figuring out what to do next in between shooting scenes. I'm extremely surprised at caliber of some of the name involved in the project, Jerry Lewis (two roles!) and Orson Welles?!?! I give them some credit for trying to make a film out of the crazy book Slapstick, even though it is a colossal failure and only covers the beginning of the novel. A few scenes remind me of typical Tom Green comedy schtick, nothing but noise and mess, but just noise and mess doesn't make something funny, it's just infantile. I watched it yesterday and I think it is like trying to get the smell of burnt milk out of your nose, the ridiculously bad scenes just hang around in my memory. Someone would literally have to pay me $500 to watch this again, it is that painful.

Despite the consensus that Jerry Lewis hasn't been funny in decades, I opted to watch this painful farce out of my reverence for the great book which 'inspired' it. And it had Marty Feldman -usually a real hoot. What unforgivable tripe! Lewis and Khan play Wilbur and Eliza (giant, ugly twins who are a genius collective genius when together, but idiots when apart) and their aristocrat parents terribly. Sadly, I'll concede that it sticks to the book fairly well -THE FIRST HALF! All the best portions are ultimately lost due to a cop-out screenplay which aims to get laughs from caper-style bumbling and mess-making by over-aged comedians sadly better suited to telethons. Read the novel -it's brilliant; Wilbur becomes the last (and tallest ever) President of the United States just before a plague kills off the majority of its population (wildly suspected to be due to inhalation of microscopic Chinese). His recollections of his better years and falling-out with Eliza are signiature bitter-sweet Vonnegut. The best part of the movie was Pat Morita as a prototypical 3" Chinaman ambassador.

I don't have much to say here except that I don't understand this movie's ultra-low rating. It's much better than that. It's a decent sci-fi comedy with lots of funny things and plenty of laughs. The whole deal with the Chinese as the smartest people in the world is a hoot.

I'm sure the original Vonnegut novel (which I haven't read, but would like to) is better, but as it is, the movie isn't bad. Granted, a lot more could have been done with the concept, and they never really did get around to solving "the gravity problem", but I still enjoyed the movie a great deal. It was a bit long-winded in places, and it may not be an immortal classic, but for fans of sci-fi comedy, it's definitely worth watching.

7 out of 10.

With two very talented comedic actors Jerry Lewis & Madeline Kahn you would expect a hilarious movie. Unfortunately this is not the case. Not a funny moment. Very hard to sit through the entire movie.

Tries as I may, I could not find a redeeming feature. I bought the DVD for $2.00; and after seeing the movie, I feel that I paid too much.

Really not worth watching.

I had to see this movie because I had no choice. I was taking a trip in a bus and they put this movie on the bus's TV. I never get asleep on a bus specially when there's a movie playing but in this case I better tried to sleep because I couldn't stand watching this movie. The worst movie I've ever seen. I got headache and felt dizzy when it finished.

This film by the great Jerry Lewis rates in my top three worst films of all time. It is up there with Vanilla Sky and Mothman Prophecies. Oh how the mighty have fallen. A good gift for a relative or work colleague that you HATE. At least that way, you will associate some laughs with the movie! The Great man looks tired and distracted and the once razer sharp "slapstick" Lewis built his career on is ironically that of another kind. The film has a look that makes a shoe-string budget look like something to aspire to, and the direction gives the film a "fragmented" feel. Indeed, it is difficult to reconcile Lewis' efforts here in light of his earlier works, the bulk of which are above average, with some, such as "The Bellboy" being works of true comedic genius. One might think that with time and the "honing" of ones skills, and the hindsight that allows one to look back and see what "works" and what does not, Lewis should never have, or have been allowed to have, made this movie. Thankfully, he has enough work of substance in the genre to keep this aberration an ugly footnote to his career.

. . . it will do until that one comes along. A complete botch job in every conceivable aspect. Lewis mugs more than usual-- a stupendous accomplishment-- and the movie looks so cheap it gives "cheesy" a bad name. How a major talent like Madeline Kahn got roped into doing this steaming pile is beyond me; I guess she must have needed to pay some bills since that would be the only even remotely logical explanation. I've emitted beer farts that weren't as rancid as this mess is. A total misfire, embarrassing to watch, maddening to think that they actually were able to find the $4.19 it cost to make this thing.

Avoid at all costs.

This is an hour I'll never get back- luckily three stooges are on- they make more sense. I like Jerry Lewis and Madeline Kahn what we're they thinking.

I tried twice to watch this on Sat TV (yes I'm that old) and couldn't do it. I think I lasted 20 minutes the second time, and I was forceing myself. Couldn't do it.

This movie suks. And not in a good way.

I went looking for something about what Kurt Vonegut himself must have thought of this film adaption of his novel Slapstick. I could find nothing attributable to him, but I sure found plenty of people who thought this film was horrid. I have to say I agree.

If someone like Steven Spielberg had made Slapstick it probably would have turned out something like Close Encounters Of The Third Kind or Cocoon. It should have been a fantasy like those two films. But someone possibly Jerry Lewis saw the title and was taken with it. And we got a slapstick version of Slapstick.

Jerry Lewis and Madeline Kahn play a wealthy married couple who have fathered a pair of grotesque looking boy and girl twins also played by Lewis and Kahn. They're not human, these the product of alien seed put into Kahn by some far superior alien race in the hopes of saving the planet. Previously they've tried with two other twins in China which has now progressed technically far beyond the rest of the planet. But they're taking selfish advantage. Time to even the odds.

The Chinese under the leadership of Premier Pat Morita have solved their population explosion and in turn all the problems that has brought with it. Wait till you see how they did it. President Jim Backus of the USA wants to do the same thing for America. Can Jerry Lewis and Madeline Kahn be the answer?

The secret is that together they're at an intelligence level light years beyond anyone human even Stephen Hawking. Apart they're some of Mack Sennett's best comedians for real. Useless apart and together they can outsmart the world, what to do?

Maybe some day someone will do this novel over again in the proper genre.

What was Jerry Lewis thinking when he made this sick, demented, trash can of a movie. Has to be one of the worst films in Cinema History. The weird thing was that Lewis went on the Johnny Carson Show and plugged this mess. Watch Jerry in The Nutty Professor and flush this movie down the toilet where it belongs.

Aliens posess the bodies of two children in this spoof of "Close Encounters", "2001", et. al.

This is not the BEST parody film, but one of the better ones. Kurt's novel is rather poignant in places and is captured in the film rather well.

Worth renting if you are a Lewis, Vonnegut, or Kahn Fan!

This is the worst non-Baz Luhrmann non-Uwe Boll non Gregg Araki movie ever made.

Not only should you not watch this movie, you should... no, you *must* destroy any copies you happen upon. The many crimes against comedy and, indeed, writing in general which are presented on screen pale in comparison to the damage inevitably done to our civilization's reputation when some future species unearths and decodes a copy and assumes it is typical of whatever passed for religion/entertainment in the latter half of the 20th Century.

This movie is an atrocity. An abomination. A barbarity. A monstrously unfunny offence against sensibility and intelligence. A heinously cruel, cynical, poorly-rendered and fiendish affront to the work of Kurt Vonnegut. Jesus wept.

This is probably one of the worst films ever made based on an amazing book by a master in 20th century literature!! Kurt Vonnegut's SLAPSTICK is a tour de force in literary science fiction and humorous satire...and the latter day, slipping quickly into showbiz irrelevance Jerry Lewis, apparently not long after making a film so bad, The Day The Clown Cried, that even HE has had it permanently locked away FOREVER...he decided to "redeem himself" by trashing a Kurt Vonnegut classic novel!! So the "joke" of this awful film is that it's based on about 5% of the book (and Lewis's take in that 5%!!), so if you even saw the film, then read the book, you'd probably say, WTF WAS THAT (in reference to the garbage 2 hours that was stolen from your life!!)??? Without belaboring the point, please please please, don't waste your precious time on this steaming pile of infected feces...read the book, and feel for the soul of the great Madeline Kahn, who somehow got roped into this dog and maybe (maybe!!) had something to do with her sad untimely demise (prob not, but I'd like to think so!!)!! Hopefully Jerry Lewis is now somewhere in Hell doing schtick for a bored Hitler & Stalin for this, the clown thing, and a bunch of his other later crappy flicks!!!