Smorgasbord (1985)

Excellent but underrated film

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Let me tell ya, it doesn't matter what part of Smorgasbord, I start watching again, I'm guaranteed laughs. That's what great about this movie, you don't know where Jerry will take it next. This is slapstick at it's zaniest. If you loved Hardly Working you're gonna split your sides here. Like our hapless bumbling idiot Bo, in Hardly Working, Lewis plays another klutz, Warren Nefflon, a necrophiliac, a walking hazard, a guy who constantly fears the negative. He can't even get across the overly shiny floor of his psychiatrist's office, as he manages to slip over, but can't manage to get himself back up, without going over again, and again, and again. Or is this just Warren's negative thinking, a moral attached, "If you think negative you'll be negative". The cliché there in the who side splitting movie. Jerry's doctor, (Milton Berle, perfect) is at a loss, he evidently shows, face to camera, rolling his eyes, shaking his head. Warren has tried to kill himself a couple of times, the first one trying to hang him himself from a ceiling fan, you gotta see, another before he's about to drive off a cliff, he mouths to the camera, "Goodbye", only the car then stalls on the mountain top, so he exits to get some petrol, only he didn't leave the handbrake. Another failed costly suicide. We too Jerry playing many characters, all idiots, the bank stickup that becomes a dance routine, I loved as much as I love my Mexican. And also we have a loud annoying voice of a waitress, who likes to be methodical when describing the menu, or any other things, which she does through other characters, who unfortunately have the same loud nagging voice, someone to answer to, for causing tinetus of the ears I imagine. May'be she has a personality disorder, but with the same obsessive compulsiveness, that makes her such a hoot. You'll be choking with laughs in the restaurant scene. But before I go, I just have to mention, Jolly Fat Wee Hawkins airlines. At the advice of his shrink, Jerry travels this incredibly cheap flight, that doesn't have second or first class, or any class for that matter. You know you're in for a bad flight when a wheel pops off while airborne, and they're showing smutty movies with a pack of cards. Jerry had to evacuate the plane, ending up in the snow, with a bearded fellar quite like himself, who too took that dreaded flight. After Warren yells a word that buries him half deep in an avalanche, he ends up in hospital where he's been recorded as the coldest patient they've had. You realize that, when you hear the sound of ice, dropping into Jerry's bedpan. An insanely hypnotic comedy, manned by a guy who knows funny. For Lewis fans, there's no excuse not to watch this. I repeat, no excuses.

Jerry Lewis has always been one of the most awesomely gifted comedians in the business. He can make you laugh so hard, your ribs hurt. He can also bore (and embarrass) the snot out of you. This movie is, truthfully, uneven. The first ten minutes, as the poor schnook tries merely to sit down in a doctor's office, are brilliant, screamingly funny. Other bits (there really isn't much of a plot) traverse a range from lying there like iron ingots to surreally jaw-dropping. The French aren't necessarily crazy. The highs in this movie soar, the lows strain to reach the curb. Welcome to a Jerry Lewis movie. If you can't handle that, this isn't for you.

The quality of Jerry's films has been somewhat erratic (some might consider this an understatement), some great, some awful. By 1983, when Jerry made this movie, the last film he directed, many people had written him off, I think. In any event, the movie escaped my attention when it came out. I came across it in a movie rental store when I needed a number of movies to get me through a post-operation recovery when I was stuck at home sometime in early '90s. I put it into the VCR and proceeded to be amazed. I still have vivid memories of some of the surreal sets and sketches. I consider this film to be Jerry's bid to rival the best of Peter Sellers.

Jerry's finally lost it.I knew he was going downhill with "Hardly Working", which left him just that. But with "Cracking Up", he finds himself stuck with a movie that is so loud, so shrill and so in-your-face that laughing at it is not an option. You just want to analyze it to death.As an all-around crackpot, Jerry sees a psychiatrist (Edelman) to try and get to the bottom of why he is in such sad shape. The vignettes, when not repetitive, are just plain dumb. See, one part has him trying to quit smoking, so he goes to seek help. Now, whenever he lights up, Dick Butkus pops out of nowhere and belts him one. He shows up out of the bushes, in a buffet line, as a statue, etc. Cute at the beginning, but after the eleventh or twelfth time, it gets kind of annoying.There is a bit part for Sammy Davis Jr. but his best role is in an out-take at the end where Jerry hoists him up and announces, "I'd like to thank the NAACP for this award...." So, you see, Jerry can be funny. He used to be funny and there are times when he still has funniness within his grasp. But not here.Three stars from me. Eight stars if you're a rabid fan. Ten stars if you're reading this in France.