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The Nutty Professor, 1963
A nebbish professor named Kelp (Jerry Lewis) is disastrously clumsy and socially inept. After inventing a magical potion of sorts, he unleashes an alter-ego named Buddy Love. Stuck between the two versions of the same man is Stella (Stella Stevens), one of Kelp's students and an immediate target for Buddy's aggressive affection.
My run of completely underwhelming films continues with this entry.
And as with the last few movies I've watched, I am struggling to have much to say about it.
The film has two strengths. The first is Lewis in his admittedly impressive double performance, with his character of Kelp being the more fully-realized, but his Buddy Love being a well-realized suave sociopath. Lewis brings strong comedic timing and physical energy to both characters and he is the battery powering the entire film.
I also have to say that I enjoyed the more "shtick" comedy--like the infamous sequence where Kelp tries to bulk up at the gym and a barbell stretches his arms to an impossible length. It was goofy and over the top and I didn't hate it.
On the downside, though, there were two problems I had with the film.
Anyone who knows me will be entirely unsurprised that I took issue with a subplot about a professor lusting after one of his students. Some movies try to take the edge off of this kind of power dynamic by making the male character shy and reserved and "innocent", but a sequence in which Kelp stares at his female student and imagines her in increasingly small and revealing outfits was the deal breaker for me. It's gross. It's unethical. And it significantly lowered my opinion of Kelp's character. In "reality" he is 37 and she's 24, but even with her looking a bit older than college age, it still comes across as lecherous and inappropriate. It doesn't help that Stella is pretty one note (okay, two note: nice and confused).
Then there's just the fact of the mixed messages that the film seems to be sending. At times the film seems uncertain whether men who bully and browbeat women are objects of mockery or admiration. You would think that the strong theme would either be that (1) Kelp learns to love himself or (2) Kelp learns something from his more confident self, but by the end of the movie I didn't feel that I understood what it was trying to say. It's a lot of movie to sit through when it can't go about building its themes in a coherent way. The film would have probably been better if they had gone super simplistic with the themes and just leaned into the comedy.
I did genuinely enjoy watching Lewis perform. I haven't seen him in much, though obviously many of his cultural ripples have crossed my path (like in the scientist character in The Simpsons). But the muddled narrative and unappealing central romance made this a borderline-tedious watch.
The Nutty Professor, 1963
A nebbish professor named Kelp (Jerry Lewis) is disastrously clumsy and socially inept. After inventing a magical potion of sorts, he unleashes an alter-ego named Buddy Love. Stuck between the two versions of the same man is Stella (Stella Stevens), one of Kelp's students and an immediate target for Buddy's aggressive affection.
My run of completely underwhelming films continues with this entry.
And as with the last few movies I've watched, I am struggling to have much to say about it.
The film has two strengths. The first is Lewis in his admittedly impressive double performance, with his character of Kelp being the more fully-realized, but his Buddy Love being a well-realized suave sociopath. Lewis brings strong comedic timing and physical energy to both characters and he is the battery powering the entire film.
I also have to say that I enjoyed the more "shtick" comedy--like the infamous sequence where Kelp tries to bulk up at the gym and a barbell stretches his arms to an impossible length. It was goofy and over the top and I didn't hate it.
On the downside, though, there were two problems I had with the film.
Anyone who knows me will be entirely unsurprised that I took issue with a subplot about a professor lusting after one of his students. Some movies try to take the edge off of this kind of power dynamic by making the male character shy and reserved and "innocent", but a sequence in which Kelp stares at his female student and imagines her in increasingly small and revealing outfits was the deal breaker for me. It's gross. It's unethical. And it significantly lowered my opinion of Kelp's character. In "reality" he is 37 and she's 24, but even with her looking a bit older than college age, it still comes across as lecherous and inappropriate. It doesn't help that Stella is pretty one note (okay, two note: nice and confused).
Then there's just the fact of the mixed messages that the film seems to be sending. At times the film seems uncertain whether men who bully and browbeat women are objects of mockery or admiration. You would think that the strong theme would either be that (1) Kelp learns to love himself or (2) Kelp learns something from his more confident self, but by the end of the movie I didn't feel that I understood what it was trying to say. It's a lot of movie to sit through when it can't go about building its themes in a coherent way. The film would have probably been better if they had gone super simplistic with the themes and just leaned into the comedy.
I did genuinely enjoy watching Lewis perform. I haven't seen him in much, though obviously many of his cultural ripples have crossed my path (like in the scientist character in The Simpsons). But the muddled narrative and unappealing central romance made this a borderline-tedious watch.