I love this movie so much

Best movie ever!

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

This is now the second Jerry Lewis movie that I've recently watched - And I swear that it'll be the last. I refuse to watch another film with this #1 A-Hole in it, ever again.In one word - I sum up Jerry Lewis as being nothing but AWFUL!!!... AWFUL!!... AWFUL!!This brain-dead Jekyll & Hyde story from 1963 stank, big-time. With Lewis portraying 2 personae in this picture - He certainly managed to be unbearably irritating as both characters.It was especially as the infantile Dr. Julius Kelp character (aka. the nutty professor) that Lewis totally grated on my nerves like you wouldn't believe. It was a good thing for subtitles here 'cause otherwise I wouldn't have ever understood WTF!? his character was babbling about most of the time.I honestly cannot believe that this idiotic doofus (Lewis) was a really popular and well-liked comedian of his generation. ' Cause, as I said earlier - Lewis was AWFUL!! AWFUL!! AWFUL!!

OK. Beyond writing a straight, common review of how funny or not so funny this movie is, i would like to make some points. Yes, i am a 60's child that grew up watching Lewis, Clint Eastwood and his spaghetti westerns, corny TV shows like Lost In Space, The Time Tunnel; enjoyed watching Elvis gyrating with babes on the beach, and was enthralled with the rudimentary art of the TV cartoons in the 60's. But here is one point: today, the youth understands humour as something that is wide open and that has no bounderies. That means anything goes in comedy nowadays: sex, drugs, perversion of all kinds, profuse swearing, strong condescending attitudes, acidic cynicism, manic depressive characters that will sometimes spit out a funny joke attached to a body part, a sex act or followed by a huge toke from a huge joint. Well, i am old enough to know that humour is not limited to what today's media dish out. There are many kinds of humour; of course some types of comedy originated from way back and because it was from a somewhat distant past, lots of youths will quickly dismiss it as UNfunny. What is funny is like " Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder": what is funny to one may not be funny to another. But what I find disappointing is the trend, the current, the direction comedy takes today. It seems to ignore the value of physical comedy, satire, slap stick, Vaudeville and so on. In the past, some of the best comedy was seen in duos, on stages of variety shows, etc. Mainstream TV still offers in modest ways those comedy styles (SNL of the 70's, 80's, SCTV, In Living Color) but nothing like Martin's Laugh In or The Carol Burnett Show delivered. Back then comedy was for the whole family, now comedy has a parental guidance warning. If someone like me dares to surf the channels to find and enjoy cleaner comedy, I will certainly hit a brick wall. That is the sad part of this issue: the present offers very little options in terms of a broad choice to comedy types. So, aside from this essay approach to my take on Comedy, this movie is one of many good comedies Lewis created. Many of his movies showed creative comedy that did not need fancy special effects or CGI to be funny. In fact, when people mention that Eddie Murphy's version is comparable and that his scenes with multiple characters he portrays "at the same time" is false. The effect seems to have Murphy doing the characters all at once but of course, they were each filmed then edited and CGIed to look as one event. Well, Lewis did not have CGI and advanced special effects with which he could play. But despite that technological absence, he pulled it off masterfully, with the techniques typical of the times. And then there are those small moments, details that express a subtle humour that is not loud, obnoxious or full of disrespectful attitudes. The scene where you see Lewis sitting deep inside a chair, chatting with his university chair person. The timing is classic, the sound effects support the comedic moment and, best of all, Lewis' expressions are what makes for a curriculum of comedy worthy of any college. His movies show us many examples of his unequalled talent in physical comedy, his ability to play with his voice, his face, his limbs and his admirable talent to portray many different personalities, characters with comedy that points out the humanity in even the least likable of characters (like the gangster in The Family Jewels). I agree that many of the films he directed were filled with flaws of all sorts but so are many, many other movies directed by other people (Clint, Spielberg and Hitchcock among others). The scripts were not always the best in Jerry's movies but they held their own and they survived because of Jerry's humour. we also do understand that Jerry had the habit of building his movies as series of skits, strung together with light hearted script. His movies were pure entertainment of the joyous kind, like most comedies of the past. They were not depressing, full of nudity, graphic sexual acts, scenes of death, gore and vulgarities of all sorts. They were light, happy, unpretentious and only wanted to make you laugh, that is it. If today's youth views his movies and fail to laugh when viewing, then i cannot help them, I cannot cure them, and i must move along with my generational differences and take to my grave what I enjoyed during my childhood and throughout my whole life. Call me old fashioned and that is more than fine with me. If i was to try redemption for our modern society, i could say that one of the last physical humorist of our times, who saw it fit to make movies almost comparable to Jerry's, would be Jim Carrey. In the 1990's, we saw him perform a similar type of comedy as Jerry's and it was refreshing to me. But by then came a huge wave of comedians that thrived on the F word and bodily functions to make people laugh, and that is when I stopped laughing.

I grew up watching Jerry Lewis act in the 1950's, and he was always very funny. However, I did not care for his suave transformation character in this movie, because the cool guys during the 1960's did not wear that much greasy hair dressing, so I felt that was way out of place. (He wore greasy hair balm in real life I believe at this time Well - yuck!) If there were men like that, they would have been slapped left and right acting like this character did in real life. I suppose he was trying to be the obnoxious cool guy anyway, but I really hated him acting this way. Stella was perfect for her part. Very cute then, but I was so glad her character didn't fall for this Buddy Love person. I think to appreciate this movie, you have to understand or have lived that era. I like the different format Lewis used when at the end of the movie, all the actors/actresses walked out and bowed their parts as if having made a stage show.

Jerry Lewis himself always considered this his greatest film. He's right. It is. We will never know what he had in mind when he came with the idea -- looks like a stab at a "goofy" version of Jekyll/Hyde -- but whatever it was, it worked. Years later, Lewis would boast to interviewers that he not only had the pleasure of making this film a success at the time, but he made money a second time when he re-sold the rights to Eddie Murphy. (Who used said rights to make a film of considerably lesser merit. But HEY if Jerry had a payday, I'm happy for him.) Frankly it is hard to discuss the contribution of the rest of the cast because, of this there is no doubt, Jerry steals the entire picture. (In most of his other films, he "attempts" to steal the picture, but rarely succeeds. Here he nails it. Big difference.) Stella Stevens is memorable even in a fairly understated performance. And the parrot does a good job too -- playing a parrot. I believe the sub-themes spinning around the way the Stevens character immediately goes for the "bad boy" in Buddy Love do have implications for the culture of the day, but the film is oh so much more than that. It is about the difference between who you are, and who you want to be. It is a must-see, a one of a kind. And as promised here is what may be the secret to Lewis' pitch-perfect performance. In an interview given years later by Lewis' son, the interviewer was told that Jerry did such a great job on Buddy because Jerry "was" buddy in real life. No acting required. Food for thought.