Jerry Lewis's Smorgasbord 1983

 I don't want to get into the discussion of why the French like Jerry Lewis and many Americans (especially film critics) do not, except to say that a "comedy" does not have to be funny; the best comedies are the most serious.  This is true of Smorgasbord, the last film Lewis directed, as it is of much of Lewis's work, including his films with Frank Tashlin, which I have written about extensively in this blog.  Smorgasbord is also a final film, a farewell that is underestimated and misunderstood as much as the final films of John Ford (Seven Women, 1966) and Charles Chaplin (The Countess from Hong Kong, 1967), also summations of their careers that were considered "old-fashioned."  I don't think that anyone who doesn't already care, at least somewhat, for Lewis is going to have their mind changed by Smorgasbord, but those of us who found beauty and humor in Lewis's career -- culminating with The Nutty Professor (1963) -- appreciate this summation and farewell to directing.

Like Chaplin in Limelight (1952) Lewis in Smorgasbord is anticipating his own death, though he is unable to make it happen:  he tries to hang himself but the rope is too long; he tries to have himself shot by rigging up a gun to the door but when the ice he ordered from room service arrives he has forgotten to leave the door unlocked; he tries to drive his car off a cliff but gets stuck on a hill; he tries to set himself on fire but after pouring gasoline on himself in a remote spot finds he doesn't have a match, etc.  Lewis goes to see an analyst (Herb Edelman, playing the straight man) but keeps slipping on the floor, until he finally returns wearing swim fins.  Throughout these ventures Lewis and cinematographer Gerald Perry Finneman use the entire frame (common in Lewis's work), with important things happening on the edges. Throughout the film several motorcars are destroyed in various ways for various reasons, one of the numerous references to Laurel and Hardy, where destruction was a major element in their comedy. 

In the same way that John Wayne's politics are being forgotten as appreciation is growing for his films directed by Howard Hawks and John Ford perhaps we can finally begin to forget, at least to some extent, the obnoxious show-biz personality of Jerry Lewis and appreciate the films he made with Frank Tashlin and the ones he directed himself.