The Stooge

When I was a kid and we only had three channels on the TV, I remember one of the channels playing some of the old Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis comedies in the morning one week during the summer.  I couldn’t for the life of me tell you which ones they showed, but I remember that I really enjoyed watching them.  Over the years I’ve never went back to revisit those films, and things that I have heard and read have changed my child’s innocent and uninformed view of Dean and Jerry into a more complicated take on the two individuals.  As a kid, Jerry was just funny.  As an adult I have to balance that view with a very different personality that seemed to come out in certain interviews or statements.  There is a dark side to Jerry that we occasionally glimpse, and for me, it detracts from the clown.

I tried to just put all of that in the back of my mind while I watched The Stooge on Wednesday.  I ran across the movie while checking out Big Lots $3 DVDs a few weeks back.  I thought it would be fun to relive the fun memories of that summer by popping in a Martin and Lewis comedy.  Unfortunately, The Stooge was not the proper title to choose for innocent childhood memories.  The Stooge is a more serious film with Dean playing an egotistical jerk and Jerry seeming more like a mentally handicapped adult with special needs rather than a childlike goof. 

Dean is Bill Miller a performer that wants to be a solo act and a star.  He has been singing and playing accordion while trading jokes with a partner.  He hires a gag writer to write him some jokes, ditches his comic partner and starts his solo career.  The gags fall flat and his solo career starts to flounder.  His agent suggests hiring a stooge to sit in the box at his shows.  He tells Bill to announce to the audience that there is a special guest in the audience, the writer of some hit song, shine the light on the stooge and do a bit of banter before going on with his act.  The stooge they hire is Ted Rogers (Jerry Lewis).  Ted by just being himself creates laughter.  The audience loves him and Bill eats up the applause at the end of the performance because it’s his solo show.  The more popular and creative Ted becomes, the more Bill fights any suggestion by his wife or agent that Ted’s name should be included on the bill as well.  Ted doesn’t seem to care about the billing.  He is happy to perform and he is loyal to Bill to a fault.  Eventually Bill’s treatment (or mistreatment) of Ted costs him his wife and his agent (also his long-time friend) and he tells Ted to go as well.  He goes out once more solo and as he bombs once again, he finally realizes how much he needs Ted.  He apologizes to the audience and then Ted appears to help his old pal and save his act.  Bill’s change of heart gets him back his partner, his wife and his agent, and even helps Ted to get the girl he has been pining for.

The Stooge isn’t a bad film, but it was not what I was expecting, and I think that hurt my enjoyment of the film.  Knowing that Martin and Lewis broke up a few years after this film and weren’t even on speaking terms for many years, I kept looking for subtext which took me out of the fictional story.  I only give The Stooge 2 stars, but it is possible that if I were to rewatch it without thinking I was sitting down to a Martin and Lewis laugh riot, I might come away with a different opinion.  The DVD is bare bones, so no enlightenment can be found there.

Tags: Big Lots, cheap DVD, comedian, comedy, Dean Martin, ego, Jerry Lewis, Martin and Lewis, music, singer