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Report of Jerry Lewis’ death is greatly exaggerated

July 1st, 2008 by Scott Marks

No one loses…except maybe a Goddamn National Treasure!!!

It’s a big, wide, wonderful world we live in.

In Big Olly’s Homeric tribute to the “long traditions” of clowns, the topic turns, as it must in all meditations on Punchinellos, to Jerry Lewis.

“I suppose I am drawn more to the maudlin and tedious clownish stylings of the late, great Jerry Lewis.”

Big Olly’s a Clown killer, by golly! When last I looked, Jerry was alive and touring and looking better than he has in years. Where does this heartless galvantz get off planting a beloved actor, producer, director, conductor, mime, singer, dancer, writer…what am I forgetting…author, recording artist, nightclub performer, Broadway sensation, recipient of a little red French thingy you wear on your lapel, humanitarian and National Chairman and Spokesperson for the Muscular Dystrophy Organization? (Emulsion Compulsion is gonna’ have to dig a lot of holes when Jerry eventually checks out, God forbid.)

After B.O. buries Jerry, he gets to the topic at hand: Three Ring Circus. It’s probably the worst of the Martin and Lewis vehicles. For the first time their personal acrimony is visible on screen. The boys barely spend any time together leaving vast, unfunny patches of circus humor and Dean singing solo to the animals.

There is one scene in the film that has continued to give me douchechills since the first day I saw it. Here is Olly’s take:

“Allow me to indulge myself. In “3 Ring Circus” or something, Jerry (along with Dean Martin) is working in a circus, mainly manning those sideshows with maximum hilarious potential for going messily wrong. Jerry falls foul of the traditional drunken, angry clown Puffo who is, for some reason, sacked. On that basis Jerry steps in as “Jericho” the clown and is an instant hit.

The poignant height of his career is when, performing for a group of handicapped children, Jericho realises that his antics have failed to touch one little girl (conveniently seated in the front row). He goes over to her and speaks to her in what I think is a breach of one of the fundamental rules of clowing (sic). He says something along the lines of ‘Come on honey. I know you don’t think I’m funny, but won’t you laugh for me?’

Now I have seen lame begging for laughs at many levels of comedy but that must be the worst. When it predictably fails, Jericho starts to weep, which strikes the child as the funniest thing she has seen in a ‘coon’s age and she laughs up a storm.

I mean to say. Funny or maudlin? I leave the decision to you. Actually, no I don’t. It is maudlin and appalling.”

He’s right about the maudlin and appalling one-two punch. The film was Paramount’s big 1954 Christmas picture. The first Telethon was held in June 1955 at Carnegie Hall in New York. Having not had the privilege of watching hours of Jerry’s private videos, to the best of my knowledge this was his first public reference to dystrophic children and it’s quite a calling card. At no time has it ever been acceptable to paint physically disabled children as monsters, especially by someone like Jerry Lewis who is known to rely on sentiment and pathos. Suddenly this sympathetic, forlorn little urchin is transformed into Rhoda Penmark with leg braces, laughing uncontrollably at the day the clown cried.

The film is a must for Martin & Lewis mavens. Paramount Home Video insists on keeping it from me. Just part of my daily struggle, I guess.

As for you, Olly, I ask that you control your urge to kill. Don’t you want Jerry to live long enough to see The Nutty Professor: The Musical make it to Broadway? And what about Adam Sandler’s remake of Cinderfella?

Links:
Three Ring Circus photos

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Filed Under News, Rants

Dig A Hole: IRON MAN director dies!

May 29th, 2008 by Scott Marks

Joseph Pevney: Man of Ten Camera Setups

No, not Jon Favreau. That would really be a scoop! We lost Joseph Pevney, the director of the original Iron Man, a 1951 boxing clunker that starred Jeff Chandler as an ambitious coal miner who finds a more lucrative career as a pugilist.

Joseph Pevney, or “Peeny” as this ten-year-old and his friends used to call him whenever his name appeared in The Munsters credits, died May 18 at his home in Palm Desert, according to his wife, Margo. He was 96.

Born September 15, 1911, in New York City, Pevney began his 60-years showbiz career as a boy soprano in vaudeville. Between 1936-46, Pevney acted and directed on Broadway. He made his movie debut playing a killer in 1946’s Nocturne. He acted in three solid film noir (Body and Soul, Thieves Highway and The Street With No Name) before turning to directing with 1950’s Shakedown.

Pevney was a hack from way back and of the 35 features he directed, only a few are worth looking at for some ripe unintentional laughs. Far from her worst vehicles, Foxfire and Female on the Beach showcase Joan Crawford at her butch best. Aside from watching how Pevney managed to keep feuding Dean & Jerry apart during most of Three Ring Circus, it remains the duo’s worst film. Meet Danny Wilson is second rate Sinatra while Tammy and the Bachelor is top drawer Debbie Reynolds.

If I tell you how much I enjoy Man of a Thousand Faces, you must believe me that it’s for all the wrong reasons. Growing up on pan-and-scan TV viewings, Jimmy Cagney’s hydrocephalic anamorphic noggin cried out for Ultra-Panavision 70.

The stuff concerning Lon’s deaf parents has all the compassion and sensitivity of a 1940’s print ad for Aunt Jemimah pancakes.

“All my life, kids tagging after my mother and father, hanging signs, making faces, yelling ‘Hey, Dummy! Hey, Dummy!‘ So proud they could speak they had to be cruel.” (I don’t have a video copy to consult. Don’t need one. Every word and inflection of Cagney’s “dummy” dialog is trapped inside my head.) When his wife Cleva (Dorothy Malone) cautions Lon to keep his voice down out of respect for his parents, Cagney bellows, “They can’t hear you!”

Even Malone joins in the parade of pathos. When contemplating giving birth to a handicapped child, she breaks down crying, “I don’t want to be mother to a dumb thing.” All this and a young Robert Evans playing Irving Thalberg make for a grand guilty pleasure. (On the plus side, it’s photographed in black-and-white ‘Scope by Russell Metty.)

After directing Portrait of a Mobster in 1961, Pevney turned his back on pictures. Or was it the other way around? Turning to the small screen from 1961 to the mid-80s when he retired, Pevney directed numerous TV series including Ben Casey, Bewitched, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, eleven episodes of The Munsters, The Fugitive, Mission: Impossible, Marcus Welby, Bonanza, Adam 12, Fantasy Island and The Rockford Files.

Oh, yeah. He also directed a few episodes of Star Trek, if you go for that sort of thing.

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Filed Under Obituaries