Smorgasbord (1985)

The greatest movie ever made..!

SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Did you people see the same film I saw?

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Cracking Up (1983) 1/2 (out of 4)Jerry Lewis wrote, produced and directs this film where he also stars as a nerd who wants to commit suicide for his various problems. He ends up going to Dr. Pletchick (Herb Edelman) who tries to cure him of his dumbness.For his 90th birthday Mr. Lewis appeared on Turner Classic Movies to discuss various films and I must admit that I was a little shocked that they were showing this picture. In his introduction Lewis talked about the constant pain he is in from various falls that he did to get a laugh throughout his career. Lewis was in a lot of pain while making this movie and it's rather sad that he did so many physical things here because the end result is quite horrible and it certainly wasn't worth the pain he had to go through.I'm not going to sit here and say that I never laughed because that would be a lie. There were a couple segments that had a couple laughs but the majority of the film is just a complete misfire. It really does seem as if Lewis was sitting around drinking with friends and coming up with stuff they thought were funny in their drunken minds. On film it just doesn't work. The opening sequence has Lewis walking into a hotel to kill himself. He has many objects to do so and we see him fail at doing it. The next scene is a very long sequence where he's trying to get into the doctor's office but keeps sliding and falling everywhere.There's a lot of physical humor like this where Lewis is trying to recapture his earlier days but it just doesn't work. There are so many awful moments here that you honestly can't blame anyone but Lewis. Naturally comedy is a subjective thing but I doubt even the French would laugh at this film. There are many cameos throughout including Milton Berle dressed in drag, Sammy Davis, Jr. playing himself and Dick Butkus. As for Lewis, he plays several characters here but all the effort was really for nothing because the film is rather embarrassing.

In Smorgasbord Jerry Lewis returns to the comedian that was top box office in the late Fifties and early Sixties, those days when he was guaranteed money in the bank for Paramount Pictures. With some old faces and new in it, Smorgasbord gives a bit of the Lewis of old in a series of comedy vignettes. It's all hung together by the plot premise of Jerry the klutz visiting psychiatrist Herb Edelman to find a cure for the disastrous life he's been leading up to that point. After that we get a series of skits, some admittedly better than others involving Jerry who seems to have had the wrong name, it should have been Jonah.An old face in drag has Milton Berle sounding sexy with Ruta Lee's voice, but looking like Milton. Long time Lewis friend Sammy Davis Jr. appears as himself and regrets entrusting Lewis with his car.My favorite two are a pair of female comedians Zane Buzby who has a nasal Brooklyn accent and a voice you would kill her for playing a waitress and Donna Ponterotto playing a stewardess in a hilarious skit about Lewis taking a trip on a budget airline to London. In that same skit is Foster Brooks as a drunken airline pilot. This was around the time Freddy Laker was offering budget trips on a short lived airline of his own. Sad that Jerry's box office days had passed. Smorgasbord could easily have fitted neatly in with The Patsy and Cinderfella in those days.

This film was on HBO a lot when I was a kid in high school. Oddly enough I have never seen it from beginning to end until today. Thank you to the Warner Archive, I finally have this 'lost' film on DVD. Not much of a plot here other than the main character Warren visiting his psychiatrist. But the laughs and gags come very rapidly. A ton of skits, loosely linked together with some great running gags. Even though I love this movie, I readily admit that half of these gags are misses and some run too long. Lewis is brilliant in this film, showing off physical comedy along with a fantastic dance number. Watch it, give it a chance. I'd be surprised if you do not laugh!

THIS is the film Jerry Lewis should have made his min-comeback with instead of the mawkish "Hardly Working". Yes, there isn't much of a story here, but like "The Bellboy" the gags for the most part are really pretty funny. The opening title sequence may contain Jerry's best moment in the film as he tries to cross a highly polished floor. Then listen what happens when the title card of the film's composer comes up. The scene where Jerry plays a cop and pulls over a overweight speeder is also one of his funniest in years. Can't argue this is a great film, but it IS funny and that's something Jerry had not been since at least "The Big Mouth" back in 1967. The other films Jerry made around this time were either just terrible ("Slapstick Encounters") or featured more of his dramatic side ("KIng of Comedy", "Funny Bones"). This film is just plain funny and its too bad it never got a wide theatrical release.