Hardly Working

Watch this one only its first five minutes, a fast-paced and genuinely funny montage of clips from Lewis's earlier comedies. Then, if you dare, settle back and get ready for a jaw-dropping compendium of unfunny gags, rip-offs from earlier movies (an entire set-up is lifted from Lewis's The Bellboy), and product placement ads galore.

Auteur Jerry Lewis does it all. He plays inept Bo Hooper haplessly drifting from job to job. Lewis' sense of timing as a director is phenomenally off. The scenes of Lewis' fussing with the donuts, the wacky "my ring is caught in your mesh" gag, and the lumbering appearance of the Budweiser Clydesdales are the three longest and most drawn-out scenes in "comedy" history.

Director Lewis is trying to give us time to savor our laughter; it really isn't necessary.

I absolutely dare you to watch this movie from start to finish. So bad it changes your concept of space and time. Then again, if you like seeing Jerry with big fake teeth pretending to be a wild Japanese cook at Benihana's, then you might genuinely like this movie. If so, shame on you. Absolutely awful.

I've never been lucky enough to see Lewis' legendary "The Day The Clown Cried", so this one will have to do as the worst movie I've ever seen.

I watched this movie and LOVED it!! It might not be Jerry's best but it is still a very good movie. Just because one person viewed the movie and did not care for it does not mean that everyone should write it off as a bad movie...Please, watch this movie and form your own opinion. I LOVE JERRY LEWIS!!!!

This Jerry Lewis project does not ring with the sound of success. This film is way below the high standards that the legendary star/director has set for comedy flicks. The plot is quite simple and most of the sight gags are over done. A bumbling idiot has trouble keeping a job. He has tried being a circus clown, gas station attendant and even delivering the U.S. Mail. Unlucky in the working world, but lucky in love. Go figure.

Also in the cast are Susan Oliver, Harold Stone and Stephen Baccus.

I saw this when it was first released, in a theater filled to the gills with rabid Jerry Lewis fans (of which I am one) who were all ecstatic to be seeing a new Jerry Lewis movie after all those years. The opening montage of scenes from his earlier films was greeted with cheers, and this giddy enthusiasm carried over for the rest of the film. (The donut scene was a particular favorite--everybody there totally "got" it.) Good spirits and joyous Jerry Lewis fandom abounded in that theater that night, and I had a wonderful time.

Whenever I see this movie now, I recall the feelings I had when I first saw it that night. Maybe you had to see it in that context and that frame of mind to truly enjoy it. Anyway, I'm still a huge Jerry Lewis fan as I have been all my life, and I enjoy all of his movies from the highs of THE NUTTY PROFESSOR and THE LADIES MAN to the lows of WHICH WAY TO THE FRONT? and HOOK, LINE, AND SINKER. Now if I could just see THE DAY THE CLOWN CRIED, my life would be complete.