The Disorderly Orderly

By this Time in His Solo Career Jerry Lewis was Showing Signs of Slipping and the Usual Self Indulgence was Becoming a Bit Much for Discerning Movie Goers and this was the Comedian's Final Year to be a Box Office Star.

It is a Typical Mugfest for Jerry and with His Familiar Director and Friend Frank Tashlin to Help with the Ego, there is Much Emphasis on Elaborate Visuals for Lewis to Run Amok in and around. But a Number of Times the Whackiness Subsides for some Sentimental Claptrap that is Painful to Watch.

The Final Chase Sequence is Quite Good and Jerry has a Few Bits of Inspiration Throughout and this was the Last Movie that could be called a Fine Film as the Remainder of His Output was Decisively Poor.

Note: Jerry Lewis was outstanding in a straight role in Martin Scorsese's King of Comedy (1982), one of his best performances on screen.

When Jerry Lewis had a strong director like Frank Tashlin who had his own ideas about comedy both could turn in a really good film. The Disorderly Orderly ranks up there as one of Lewis's best solo films.

The Disorderly Orderly casts Jerry as a would be doctor who but for one thing might have his MD degree, he's a natural born klutz. He's working at a private hospital where every task he's given turns into a disaster. He'd be fired but for the fact that the hospital head Glenda Farrell was once involved with Jerry's father and she looks on him as a child with special needs. The head nurse played by Lewis film regular Kathleen Freeman would like to strangle him as does Everett Sloane the chairman of the hospital board after a couple of encounters with him.

It's a psychological block that Jerry has, he empathizes too much with the patients and he tries too hard. The scene that brings that out is when he has to listen to Alice Pearce as one of the patients go through her laundry list of ailments. Lewis's reactions are positively hysterical.

Truth be told not everything is his fault. There's a surreal scene where Jerry is trying to fix patient Barbara Nichols's television of the snow showing. He opens it up and an arctic blast comes through the television. Truly not his fault, but also very funny.

As it turns out the cause of his complex arrives at the hospital in the person of Susan Oliver who was a prom queen back in his high school who Jerry didn't have the nerve to approach. Contact with her cures him though not the way you think or what you think.

Lewis's performance hits on all levels from the screamingly funny to a sad kind of pathos especially involving Oliver. His relationship with her as an innocent reminds me a lot of Lou Costello in several of his films.

The last ten minutes involving a chase scene with two ambulances reminds me of the chase in The Bank Dick later revived in In Society. There's also a nice cameo from Jack E. Leonard as another patient who gets the better of Jerry.

The Disorderly Orderly is an absolute must for Jerry Lewis fans of yesterday and today, it belongs at the top of his comedy classics.

Disorderly Orderly, The (1964)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Totally unfunny Jerry Lewis film finds him playing (gasp) a dumb orderly who wishes to become a doctor. Lewis falls in love with a suicidal patient and she could hold the key to him getting his wish. I really love Jerry Lewis and find him quite funny in interviews but man have I been disappointed in his solo work. One of the characters tells the dumb orderly that his problem is that he tries too hard and I think that's the problem with Lewis. The jokes are so forced that they are more annoying than anything else. A few laughs but after thirty minutes I started looking at my carpet.

Medical school flunky Jerry Lewis, who turns to jelly when patients talk about their grisly ailments, finds himself employed as an orderly at a private hospital/sanitarium/rest home (the script can't decide which it is). There's a drill sergeant head nurse who shouts at Jerry, a resident manager who dotes on Jerry, a corporation head who wants to fire Jerry, and a student nurse who wants to marry Jerry. In between all this, Lewis crosses his eyes and knocks things over. Some of this slapstick might be funnier if director Frank Tashlin knew how to follow through on a gag--and had possibly found a way to reel Lewis in. The glossy production is bright, the supporting players are good, and there's a funny, frantic chase through the streets and into a supermarket at the finale. Tashlin's outrageous sense of satire is occasionally clever, but it can't really bolster the dim-wittedness of Lewis' geek act, nor the cartoony screwball bits (as when Lewis cracks open a bad TV set and creates a snowy blizzard in a hospital room). Lewis-addicts are obviously the film's prime audience; for everyone else, a few scattered laughs amongst the high-decibel shouting and mugging. ** from ****

I am not a Jerry Lewis specialist, though I possess nearly all his films, but comedies are not my stuff. However I like this kind of entertainment,naive, mindless but exciting, especially in climaxes. This one makes no exception and remains I guess one of Jerry Lewis' best, pulled by a Frank Tashlin in great shape. Last fifteen minutes are overwhelming, a gigantic tribute to Buster Keaton and silent slapstick masterpieces. IT'S A MAD MAD WORLD was also a terrific tribute to slapstick movies.