Cast:
Jerry Lewis (Willard Woodward / James Peyton / Everett Peyton / Julius Peyton / Capt. Eddie Peyton / Skylock Peyton / Bugsy Peyton), Donna Butterworth (Donna Peyton), Sebastian Cabot (Dr. Matson), Neil Hamilton (Attorney), Jay Adler (Mr. Lyman, Attorney), Anne Baxter (Actress in In-Flight Movie), Ellen Corby (Senior Citizen Airline Passenger), and Gene Baylos (Circus Clown) Directed by Jerry Lewis (#963 - The Nutty Professor [1963], #1404 - The Bellboy, #1710 - The Patsy)
Review:
It's interesting, I had this movie on a DVD pack for several years and I can't exactly say that there were interesting reasons to get around to this movie. The Family Jewels was the sixth feature film directed by Jerry Lewis (of twelve in his career, with all but one having him as the star), which happens to be a bit of a swan song. It was the fifth (of seven) time he co-wrote the screenplay with Bill Richmond. It was the last one he directed for Paramount Pictures, as he would leave for Columbia Pictures the following year. In what might be a bit familiar for those who see enough comedies, you have our lead playing multiple characters (as evidenced by previous efforts such as The Nutty Professor and The Ladies Man), as one does when having a movie about a kid having to visit uncles and "choose" which one to live with (the uncles I suppose have no recourse to have a say), and it can't simply just be the family chaffeur. Opposite Lewis is Donna Butterworth, who starred in exactly one other film with Paradise, Hawaiian Style (1966). The movie made some money and probably didn't attract as much praise or criticism as one might read from the early (or late) parts of Lewis as a director, suffice to say*.
If you're big with Lewis movies, you might or might not find a bit of enjoyment even with a second-rate effort that is found here with a movie (runtime: 99 minutes) that is hit-or-miss with its gags because of the fact that it really is just a series of vignettes with little to really show besides Lewis in a costume and Butterworth making small observations. It basically could be construed as a coin-flip of what you might like from characters that are so, so, so clear to pick out from: a sea captain with a, um, interesting facial getup and a "story", a circus clown that actually sounds like Lewis not just doing a bit (which of course isn't there long), a photographer character that looks and sounds like Buddy Kelp (get it, because now he just take photos rather than being a professor?), a bumbling pilot in a plane (Ford Trimotor) more rare than the successful gags in the sequence, a detective character that gets, well, "Sherlocky" on a pool game, and a gangster character with goofy teeth. It really is hard to say in so many words the level of varying middle-ground stuff that comes from a movie that clearly has so many characters to try and hide the fact that this probably would barely hold mustard as a TV special. It is the kind of movie where you might start lifting your hand up in the "move on already" motion, because there can only be so many chances at sight gags (so basically, swing, whiff, swing, whiff, whiff, swing, whiff). Sometimes I was wondering if the movie would've somehow been funnier if it focused on either the Sherlock character or the decidedly non-happy clown entirely, because at least those would've invited the possibility of actually having more of someone like Hamilton (pictured one year before being Commissioner Gordon on the famed Batman show) or Adler for more than five minutes**. Butterworth is fine, but she doesn't exactly have much to do besides what you might call "plucky kid stuff", because this is a movie that loves its cheap gags to observe Lewis with, such as say, in-flight entertainment being affected by the turbulence of the plane or a military parade being shifted around or a car station having hijinks. To say nothing of the sheer predictable ending. Honestly, the more I think about the movie, the less I find myself liking it, really, because it stuck less and less in my mind when trying to make this review, and I generally think that if I don't feel like watching it again, it doesn't qualify enough to be thought of as a "good" movie. With that in mind, your milage will vary with a later-stage Lewis movie that just wasn't for me because sometimes, "hit-or-miss" just isn't enough.
Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.
*Maybe this is petty, but in the opening, Lewis is seen with a Dodgers cap on a Giants jersey. Jeez, man.
**If someone actually times how long Hamilton or Adler are in this movie, you get a gold star.
