The Errand Boy is a 1961 American comedy film directed, co-written and starring Jerry Lewis.Plot Paramutual Pictures decides that they need a spy to find out the inner workings of their studio. Morty Tashman (Jerry Lewis) is a paperhanger who happens to be working right outside their window. They decide that he is the man for the job and hire him on the spot. He bumbles his way through a series of misadventures, reporting everything back to the corporate executives. Production and releases The Errand Boy was filmed from July 24 to September 1, 1961 The film was released on November 28, 1961 by Paramount Pictures It was re-released on a double bill with another Jerry Lewis film, Cinderfella in 1967 The film was released on DVD on October 12, 2004. The second of Jerry Lewis' directorial endeavors, The Errand Boy, like its predecessor The Bellboy, is essentially a series of "spot gags," some hilarious, others only moderately amusing. The gossamer-thin plot finds Morty Tashman (Lewis) being hired by the CEO of "Paramutuel Pictures" (Brian Donlevy) to spy on studio employees and report any incidents of wastefulness and sloth. This gives Morty a chance to wander all over the Paramutuel Pictures lot, inadvertently interfering with work in progress, encountering strange characters and inexplicable events, and overall making as much of a nuisance of himself as possible. Some of the better gags include Morty's chaotic behavior at the "wrap party" for a vainglorious movie queen (Iris Adrian); his attempts to eat lunch while a noisy battle scene from a war picture rages all around him; his misguided effort to dub in the singing voice of a tone-deaf actress; the "Mr. Baebrosenthal" bit; and Morty's tete-a-tete in the studio swimming pool with a scuba diver. The weakest scenes involve Morty's sugary encounters with the Ritts Puppets, and a smug curtain speech about the importance of laughmakers in this troubled world. The huge supporting cast includes such reliable chucklemeisters as Howard McNear, Sig Ruman, Milton Frome, Benny Rubin, Fritz Feld, Doodles Weaver, Joey Forman, Dick Wesson and Joe Besser; also making fleeting appearances are actress/writer/director Renee Taylor, veteran movie tough guy Mike Mazurki (in drag!), silent film comic Snub Pollard, and the four stars from TV's Bonanza. Even non-Jerry Lewis fans will come down with a case of loose chuckles while watching The Errand Boy. Determined to cut wasteful expenditures, T. P., the head of Paramutual Pictures, selects dimwitted paperhanger Morty Tashman to spy on studio employees while posing as an errand boy. Almost immediately havoc reigns as the well-meaning but disaster-prone Morty blunders through a series of calamities. He disrupts the filming of a western, accidentally becomes the escort of a voluptuous European beauty attending a Hollywood premiere, panics the studio stenographic department, and ruins a sound-recording session. Finally, he turns a birthday party for a "great star" into a total shambles by almost drowning the woman in a flood of exploding champagne. The distraught T. P. decides to fire Morty before the entire studio is destroyed. Two top directors, however, who witnessed Morty's antics at the birthday party, regard him as a potential star comedian, and T. P. is persuaded to sign him as the new reigning comic of Paramutual Pictures. .- Jerry Lewis AM (born March 16, 1926) is an American comedian, actor, singer, film producer, screenwriter and film director. He is known for his slapstick humor in film, television, stage and radio. He was originally paired up with Dean Martin in 1946, forming the famed comedy team of Martin and Lewis. In addition to the duo's popular nightclub work, they starred in a successful series of comedy films for Paramount Pictures. Lewis is also known as the host, for more than 40 years, of the Muscular Dystrophy Association's annual Labor Day Telethon and national chairman of the MDA. Lewis has won several awards for lifetime achievements from The American Comedy Awards, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and Venice Film Festival, and he has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2005, he received the Governors Award of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Board of Governors, which is the highest Emmy Award presented.[1] On February 22, 2009, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded Lewis the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.He was born Joseph Levitch (some sources say Jerome Levitch) in Newark, New Jersey, to Russian Jewish parents.[2] His father, Daniel Levitch, was a master of ceremonies and vaudeville entertainer[3][4][5] who used the professional name Danny Lewis,[6] His mother, Rachel ("Rae") Levitch (née Brodsky),[7] was a piano player for a radio station. Lewis started performing at age five and would often perform alongside his parents in the Catskill Mountains in New York State.[8] By 15 he had developed his "Record Act", in which he exaggeratedly mimed the lyrics to songs on a phonograph. He used the professional name Joey Lewis, but soon changed it to Jerry Lewis to avoid confusion with comedian Joe E. Lewis and heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis.[9] He dropped out of Irvington High School in the tenth grade. He was a "character" even in his teenage years pulling pranks in his neighborhood including sneaking into kitchens to steal fried chicken and pies. During World War II he was rejected for military service because of a heart murmur.[10]Lewis initially gained fame with singer Dean Martin, who served as straight man to Lewis' zany antics in the Martin and Lewis comedy team. The pair distinguished themselves from the majority of comedy acts of the 1940s by relying on their interaction together instead of planned skits. In the late 1940s, they quickly rose to national prominence, first with their popular nightclub act, next as stars of their own radio program. Within a year of their first act together, they went from earning $150–175 a week each at one club to $30,000.00 a week as a team at the Copacabana.[citation needed]Martin and Lewis made many appearances on early live television, their first on the June 20, 1948 debut broadcast of Toast of the Town with Ed Sullivan on the CBS TV Network (later The Ed Sullivan Show). This was followed on October 3, 1948 by an appearance on the NBC TV series Welcome Aboard, then a stint as the first of a series of hosts of The Colgate Comedy Hour in 1950. The duo began their Paramount film careers in 1949 as ensemble players in My Friend Irma, based on the popular radio series of the same name. This was followed by a sequel in 1950, My Friend Irma Goes West. Starting with At War with the Army (1950), Martin and Lewis were the stars of their own vehicles, in fourteen additional titles at Paramount, ending with Hollywood or Bust (1956). All sixteen were produced by Hal Wallis.As Martin's roles in their films became less important over time the partnership became strained. Martin's diminished participation became an embarrassment in 1954 when Look magazine used a publicity photo of the team for the magazine cover but cropped Martin out of the photo.[11] The partnership ended on July 24, 1956. Attesting the team's popularity, DC Comics published the best-selling The Adventures of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis comic books from 1952 to 1957, after which DC featured Lewis solo in The Adventures of Jerry Lewis until 1971. In this latter Lewis was sometimes featured with Superman, Batman, and various other DC heroes and villains. It inspired the Filmation cartoon production company to make a 1970 series called Will the Real Jerry Lewis Please Sit Down, with Jerry as the one reality-based character alongside other fictitious ones, including fictionalized Lewis relatives.While both Martin and Lewis went on to successful solo careers, for years neither would comment on the split nor consider a reunion. They made occasional public appearances together between their breakup and 1961 but were not seen together until a surprise appearance by Martin on Lewis's Labor Day Muscular Dystrophy Telethon in 1976, arranged by Frank Sinatra.[12]The pair eventually reconciled in the late 1980s after the death of Martin's son, Dean Paul Martin, in 1987. In 1989, the two men were seen together on stage for the last time when Martin was making what would be his final live performances at Bally's Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Lewis pushed out a birthday cake for Martin.s 72nd birthday and sang "Happy Birthday" to him, and joking, "why we broke up, I'll never know".[13] In Lewis's 2005 book Dean and Me (A Love Story), Lewis wrote of his kinship with Martin, who died on December 25, 1995.After the split from Martin, Lewis remained at Paramount and became a major comedy star with his first film as a solo comic, The Delicate Delinquent (1957). Teaming with director Frank Tashlin, whose background as a Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoon director suited Lewis's brand of humor, he starred in five more films, and even appeared uncredited as Itchy McRabbitt in Li'l Abner (1959). Lewis tried his hand at releasing solo music in the 1950s, having a chart hit with the song "Rock-a-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody" (a song largely associated with Al Jolson and later re-popularized by Judy Garland) as well as the song, "It All Depends on You" in 1958. He eventually released his own album titled, Jerry Lewis Just Sings.[10][14] By the end of his contract with producer Hal B. Wallis, Lewis had several productions of his own under his belt. His first three efforts, The Delicate Delinquent (1957), Rock-A-Bye Baby (1958) and The Geisha Boy (1958), were all efforts to move away from Wallis, whom Lewis felt was hindering his comedy.[citation needed] In 1959, a contract between Paramount Pictures and Jerry Lewis Productions was signed specifying a payment of $10 million plus 60% of the profits for 14 films over a seven-year period.[15]In 1960, Lewis finished his contract with Wallis with Visit to a Small Planet (1960), and wrapped up work on his own production, Cinderfella. Cinderfella was postponed for a Christmas 1960 release, and Paramount, needing a quickie feature film for its summer 1960 schedule, held Lewis to his contract to produce one. Lewis came up with The Bellboy. Using the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami as his setting—and on a small budget, with a very tight shooting schedule, and no script—Lewis shot the film by day and performed at the hotel in the evenings. Bill Richmond collaborated with him on the many sight gags. Lewis later revealed that Paramount was not happy financing a 'silent movie' and withdrew backing. Lewis used his own funds to cover the $950,000 budget. During production Lewis developed the technique of using video cameras and multiple closed circuit monitors, which allowed him to review his performance instantly. His techniques and methods, documented in his book and his USC class, enabled him to complete most of his films on time and under budget. Later, he incorporated videotape, and as more portable and affordable equipment became available, this technique would become an industry standard known as video assist.Lewis followed The Bellboy by directing several more films which he co-wrote with Richmond, including The Ladies Man (1961), The Errand Boy (1961), The Patsy (1964) and the well-known comedy, The Nutty Professor (1963). Lewis occasionally handed directing reins to Frank Tashlin, who directed several of his productions, including It's Only Money (1962) and Who's Minding the Store? (1963). In 1965, Lewis directed and (along with Bill Richmond) wrote the comedy film The Family Jewels about a young heiress who must choose among six uncles, one of whom is up to no good and out to harm the girl's beloved bodyguard who practically raised her. Lewis played all six uncles and the bodyguard.On television, Lewis starred in three different programs called The Jerry Lewis Show. The first was a two-hour Saturday night variety show on ABC in the fall of 1963. The lavish, big-budget production failed to find an audience and was canceled after 13 weeks. His next show was a one-hour variety show on NBC in 1967–69. A test of a syndicated talk show for Metromedia in 1984 was not continued beyond the scheduled five shows.By 1966, Lewis, now 40, was no longer an angular juvenile and his routines seemed more labored. His box office appeal waned to the point where Paramount Pictures new executives felt no further need for the Lewis comedies and did not wish to renew his 1959 profit sharing contract. Undaunted, Lewis packed up and went to Columbia Pictures, where he made several more comedies. Lewis taught a film directing class at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles for a number of years; his students included Steven Spielberg and George Lucas.[16] In 1968, he screened Spielberg's early film, Amblin' and told his students, "That's what filmmaking is all about".[17] Lewis starred in and directed the unreleased The Day the Clown Cried in 1972. The film was a drama set in a Nazi concentration camp. Lewis rarely discusses the experience, but once explained why the film has not been released, by suggesting litigation over post-production financial difficulties. However, he admitted during his book tour for Dean and Me that a major factor for the film's burial is that he is not proud of the effort.Lewis has also appeared in stage musicals. In 1976, he appeared in a revival of Hellzapoppin' with Lynn Redgrave, but it closed on the road before reaching Broadway.[18] In 1994, he made his Broadway debut, as a replacement cast member playing the Devil in a revival of the baseball musical, Damn Yankees, choreographed by future film director Rob Marshall (Chicago).[19]Lewis returned to the screen in 1981 with Hardly Working, a film he both directed and starred in. Despite being panned by the critics, the film eventually earned $50 million. He followed this up with a critically acclaimed performance in Martin Scorsese's 1983 film, The King of Comedy, in which Lewis plays a late-night TV host plagued by obsessive fans (played by Robert De Niro and Sandra Bernhard). Lewis continued doing work in small films in the 1990s, most notably his supporting roles in 1994's Arizona Dream and 1995's Funny Bones. He appeared on television on one episode of Mad About You's first season in 1992, playing an eccentric billionaire. In 1994, the Columbia Pictures film, North featured footage of Lewis's classic movies. In 2008, Lewis reprised his role as Prof. Kelp in The Nutty Professor, his first CGI animated film, a sequel to his 1963 film, co-starring Drake Bell as the voice of his nephew, Harold Kelp.Lewis has long remained popular in Europe: he was consistently praised by some French critics in the influential magazine Cahiers du Cinéma for his absurd comedy, in part because he had gained respect as an auteur who had total control over all aspects of his films, comparable to Howard Hawks and Alfred Hitchcock. In March 2006, the French Minister of Culture awarded Lewis the Légion d'honneur, calling him the "French people's favorite clown".[20] Liking Lewis has long been a common stereotype about the French in the minds of many English-speakers, and is often the object of jokes in Anglosphere pop culture.[21] "That Americans can't see Jerry Lewis's genius is bewildering", says N. T. Binh, a French film magazine critic. And such bewilderment, even as late as 2013, was the basis of the 2001 book, "Why the French Love Jerry Lewis," by Rae Beth Gordon.[22]In 2009, Lewis traveled to the Cannes Film Festival to announce his return to cinema, after a 13-year absence, for the film Max Rose, his first leading role since Martin Scorsese's The King of Comedy.[23][24] In early 2011, Lewis signed a deal with Artificial Intelligence Entertainment and Capital Films to remake three of his 1960s films: The Bellboy, Cinderfella and The Family Jewels, with Lewis serving as co-executive producer of the new films. Lewis directed a musical theatre version of The Nutty Professor at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center in Nashville from July 31 to August 19, 2012. The book is by Rupert Holmes and the score is by Marvin Hamlisch.[25][26] Lewis has signed for a starring role in the film Max Rose.[27]Film portrayalLewis was portrayed by Sean Hayes in the 2002 made-for-television movie Martin and Lewis. The film focuses on Lewis' partnership with Dean Martin (played by Jeremy Northam) and how they came to be a team. Hayes met Lewis during shooting of the televised film, and went on to receive a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries.Peter Lorre (26 June 1904 – 23 March 1964) was an American actor of Austro-Hungarian Jewish origin.[1]Lorre caused an international sensation in the German film M (1931) in which he portrayed a serial killer who preys on little girls. Soon in enforced exile, his first English language film was Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) made in Great Britain. Settling in Hollywood, he later became a featured player in many Hollywood crime and mystery films. In his initial American films though, Mad Love and Crime and Punishment, he continued to play murderers, but was then cast playing Mr Moto, the Japanese detective, in a run of B pictures.From 1941 to 1946 he mainly worked for Warner Bros. The first of these films at Warners was The Maltese Falcon (1941), which began a sequence in which he appeared with Humphrey Bogart and Sydney Greenstreet. This was followed by Casablanca (1942). the second of the nine films in which Lorre and Greenstreet appeared. Lorre's other films include Frank Capra's Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) and Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954).Frequently typecast as a sinister foreigner, his later career was erratic. Lorre was the first actor to play a James Bond villain as Le Chiffre in a TV version of Casino Royale (1954). Some of his last roles were in horror films directed by Roger Corman. George E. Marshall (December 29, 1891 – February 17, 1975) was an American actor, screenwriter, producer, film and television director, active through the first six decades of movie history. Relatively few of Marshall's films are well-known today, with Destry Rides Again, The Sheepman, and How the West Was Won being the biggest exceptions. Marshall co-directed How the West Was Won with John Ford and Henry Hathaway, handling the railroad segment, which featured a celebrated buffalo stampede sequence. While Marshall worked on almost all kinds of films imaginable, he started his career in the early silent period doing mostly Westerns, a genre he never completely abandoned. Later in his career, he was particularly sought after for comedies. He did around half a dozen films each with Bob Hope and Jerry Lewis, and also worked with W.C. Fields, Jackie Gleason, Will Rogers and Laurel and Hardy. For his contribution to the film industry, George Marshall has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7048 Hollywood Boulevard. The Sad Sack is an American fictional comic strip and comic book character created by Sgt. George Baker during World War II. Set in the United States Army, Sad Sack depicted an otherwise unnamed, lowly private experiencing some of the absurdities and humiliations of military life. The title was a euphemistic shortening of the military slang "sad sack of shit", common during WWII. The phrase has come to mean "an inept person" or "inept soldier".[1]Originally drawn in pantomime by Baker, The Sad Sack debuted June 1942 as a comic strip in the first issue of Yank, the Army Weekly. It proved popular, and a hardcover collection of Baker's wartime Sad Sack strips was published by Simon & Schuster, Inc. in 1944, with a follow-up, The New Sad Sack (1946). The original book was concurrently published as an Armed Services edition mass market paperback, in that edition's standard squarebound, horizontal, 5 5/8" × 4" format, by Editions for the Armed Services, Inc., a non-profit organization of The Council on Books in Wartime; it was #719 in the series of Armed Service editions. Comic book Harvey Comics published original Sad Sack stories in the Sad Sack Comics comic book series, which ran 287 issues, cover-dated September 1949 to October 1982. Harvey also published the one-shot comic The Sad Sack Comes Home in 1951.[3] Supporting characters included the Sarge (Sack's First Sergeant, the potbellied and tough but reasonable Sergeant Circle); Slob Slobinski and Hi-Fi Tweeter (Sack's bunk buddies); the General (Brigadier General Rockjaw, always drawn with dark glasses, cigarette holder and Ascot tie); Captain Softseat;[4] Muttsy the dog (whose dog tag # was K-9); Sadie Sack (Sad's redheaded female cousin in the WACs); Ol' Sod Sack (Sad's hillbilly uncle); and Little Sad Sack (Sad as a kid, before his army induction[5]). The spin-off Sad Sack Navy, Gobs 'n' Gals had the supporting character Gabby Gob.The army camp where most of the action took place was usually named Camp Calamity,[6] but was sometimes called Camp Browbeat.[7]The Harvey Comics and newspaper strip were aimed at younger readers than Baker's wartime originals, and the style of the strip changed dramatically.[citation needed] In the newspaper strip, the pantomime style was abandoned in favor of a more conventional comic-story format.[citation needed]In the mid-1950s, Harvey Comics and Baker brought in Paul McCarthy to draw the Sad Sack titles,[citation needed] followed by Fred Rhoads[citation needed] (who died February 20, 2000),[citation needed] Jack O'Brien,[citation needed] and Joe Dennett.[citation needed] Others who periodically drew for the titles include Warren Kremer[citation needed] and Ken Selig.[citation needed] Baker retained editorial control and continued to illustrate the covers of Sad Sack comics until his death in 1975.[citation needed]The Sad Sack When Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis officially broke up their successful partnership after the release of Hollywood or Bust in 1956, the entertainment press speculated endlessly about the futures of both entertainers. But, the breakup had been in the works for at least a year, so the transition to going solo was not as abrupt as it may have seemed. Lewis stayed with producer Hal Wallis and Paramount, and preparations were made to turn properties originally purchased for the team into vehicles for the comedian. The first comedy, The Delicate Delinquent, was released in June 1957, just six months after Hollywood or Bust, and the second, The Sad Sack, followed in November. Both films proved to be successful at the box office. The Sad Sack had a ready-made, built-in audience, because it was based on a popular cartoon and comic-book character. Sad Sack was introduced in 1941 in a single-panel cartoon published in Life magazine. The artist, Sergeant George Baker, had been employed at Disney drawing backgrounds for their animated shorts and features before joining the Marines in World War II. He had sent his Sad Sack idea to several major newspapers, but no one showed any interest until Life published it as part of an amateur cartoon contest. The editor of Yank, the Army Weekly saw the cartoon and was impressed enough to hire Baker to turn the exploits of Sad Sack into a regular feature. The character was intended as a commentary on life in the army for the common soldier, who was sometimes frustrated by the monotony, harsh treatment by officers, and relentless KP duties. A hapless stumblebum, poor Sad Sack always seemed to be in trouble with his superiors despite his honorable intentions.The cartoon was so popular with soldiers that Simon & Schuster published two hard-cover collections of the strips in 1944. After the war, the Bell Syndicate picked up the strip, and it was distributed through regular newspapers until the late 1950s. The character's most lasting success came in comic-book form. Sad Sack was turned into a comic-book character by Harvey Comics in 1949, and the first issue was published in September. Like his creator George Baker, Sad Sack had re-entered the work force after the war, but in 1952, Harvey Comics decided to return him to the army, because the bumbling, unlucky nature of the character worked better in a military environment. Whereas the original comic strip was read by young men, the comic book appealed to children and adolescents, and Baker had difficulties writing for the younger audience. In 1954, Harvey brought in Fred Rhoads, a young but experienced comic-book writer and artist, to handle the storylines, while Baker stayed on to draw the covers. Rhoads introduced several characters that became part of Sad Sack's circle, including General Rockjaw, Muttsy the G.I. Pooch, and Sadie Sack. Baker continued with this arrangement until his death in 1975. Rhoads left two years later in a dispute with Harvey Comics regarding royalties and payment. The last issue of Sad Sack was published in October 1982.By the time Hal Wallis purchased the film rights to the character, the term "sad sack" was in common usage to refer to any inept person who is full of good intentions but incapable of completing a task without difficulties. Given this description, Lewis's comic persona seemed a good fit with the Sad Sack character. Lewis originated his persona in the late 1940s when he teamed with handsome crooner Dean Martin to play the nightclub circuit. He referred to their act as "the Playboy and the Putz," because it featured Martin as an onstage Casanova-like singer who is heckled from the audience by a juvenile-acting Lewis. In the late 1940s, it became chic among show-business elite to attend a Martin and Lewis show. Lewis fine-tuned the act as the pair began to play to larger audiences in better venues. Their largely unscripted antics represented a kind-of controlled chaos that was exciting to watch and almost subversive in nature. Martin's relaxed demeanor and quiet authority made him the perfect straight man for Lewis's adolescent destructiveness. The act depended on an intentional friction as the energetic comedian relentlessly annoyed the laid-back singer with his constant disruptions, manic physical gags, and purposefully irritating voice.When the pair signed with Hal Wallis, who produced films for Paramount, Lewis tweaked his image to suit the silver screen. The Kid, as the comedian began to call his screen persona, evoked the mental age of a pre-teen--someone who was aware of girls but more interested in boyish pursuits. The Kid is an ungainly, clumsy character that allowed Lewis to exploit his high-pitched voice, gangly movements, pratfalls, and mugging. His film characters were tailored to this persona, and they were often saddled with names such as Harvey, Myron, or Seymour to emphasize their awkwardness.After the breakup of Martin and Lewis, the comedian continued to play roles that were variations of the Kid. In The Sad Sack, the title character is a naïve and gullible young man christened Private Meredith Bixby, a name that echoes previous Lewis roles. On his way to Camp Calhoun, Private Bixby befriends Corporal Larry Dolan and Private Stan Wenaslawsky. Once in camp, the fates of the three are intertwined, much to the chagrin of Dolan and Wenaslawsky who discover that Bixby tends to attract trouble. Dolan is assigned to tutor Bixby on the finer points of being a soldier by Major Shelton, a beautiful WAC who is also a psychiatrist. Major Shelton wants Bixby to be a better soldier, because she is confident that the army can make use of Bixby's best talent, which is his photographic memory. Like the Sad Sack of the comic book and strip, Bixby is a well-intentioned friend and a hard-working soldier, but he can't seem to keep from losing tanks, destroying jeeps, or shooting his friend in the foot. Bixby, Dolan, and Wenaslawsky are shipped to Morocco, where Meredith gets entangled with Zita, a beautiful spy who works for a group of arms dealers stealing from the U.S. military. (In a nearly silent role, Peter Lorre appears as Abdul, one of the Moroccan villains.) When the hapless Bixby is lured into their plan to procure and assemble the army's latest secret weapon, he is rescued by Dolan and Wenaslawsky, who realize they are more attached to Bixby than they care to admit. In addition to being a worthy interpretation of the Sad Sack character, the role of Meredith Bixby is typical Jerry Lewis. It allows the comedian ample opportunity to display his talent for physical comedy. Dolan and Wenaslawsky take Meredith to a local bar for some rest and relaxation, but the pitiful private falls prey to the wrong woman. During a raucous bar fight over the girl, Lewis fends off a trio of muscle-bound, ill-tempered barflies with a carefully choreographed comic display of judo that includes an amazing pratfall on the hard floor. Even small-scale physical gags are performed with precision and immaculate timing. A running joke finds Bixby constantly trying to help his superiors by noting that their ties or shirts have a loose thread, and he is only too happy to pull it for them. With a dainty tug, Bixby extracts the tiny thread, causing the article of clothing to unravel until it is merely a rag. Most dialogue scenes feature Lewis mugging his way through the conversation, with exaggerated expressions that exploit his huge mouth and incredibly flexible facial muscles.Despite the suitable fit with Lewis's comic persona, The Sad Sack was still early in his solo career. Wallis and scriptwriters Edmund Beloin and Nate Monaster felt the need to craft a character to serve as a foil for Meredith Bixby--in other words, a Dean Martin-like role. Corporal Larry Dolan, played by David Wayne, is Bixby's long-suffering father figure, friend, teacher, and straight man, much like Martin's characters in the films the two made together. Though Dolan really cares about Bixby, he is exasperated, frustrated, and annoyed by Meredith throughout most of the film, so the pair's comic interactions are based on the friction between two mismatched characters, which also emulates the Martin and Lewis onscreen relationship. Though the boyish Bixby has a crush on sexy Zita, who reciprocates his affection, it is Dolan who is the romantic lead, ardently wooing shapely Major Shelton in the manner of Dean Martin. The Sad Sack is a solid example of the first phase of Lewis's solo career, before he began directing his own material. During this era, which lasts from about 1957 to 1960, he made six films and honed his skills as a promising director, learning a great deal from mentor Frank Tashlin. A former cartoon director for Warner Bros., Tashlin helmed two Martin and Lewis comedies and six of the comedian's solo efforts. Unfortunately, The Sad Sack was not one of them. Director George Marshall lacked Tashlin's penchant for crisp pacing, cartoon-like gags propelled by energy and exaggeration, and broad satire. Despite its weaknesses, the comedy deserves a place in pop culture history not only because it marks an important turning point in the career of Jerry Lewis but also because it preserves a version of Sad Sack, a popular character type during America's postwar era. Producers: Hal B. Wallis and Paul Nathan Director: George Marshall Screenplay: Edmund Beloin and Nate Monaster based on the comic-strip character Sad Sack Cinematography: Loyal Griggs Editor: Archie Marshek Art Directors: John B. Goodman and Hal Pereira Music: Walter Scharf Costume Designer: Edith Head Cast: Private Meredith Bixby (Jerry Lewis), Corporal Larry Dolan (David Wayne), Major Shelton (Phyllis Kirk), Private Stan Wenaslawsky (Joe Mantell), Abdul (Peter Lorre), Sergeant Major Elmer Pulley (Gene Evans), Ali Mustapha (George Dolenz), Zita (Liliane Montevecchi), Moki (Michael Ansara, uncredited).
BW-98m. ebay2631