Sham – Wow!

Homer Flagg is dying of radiation poisoning. His last wish is to visit New York. An avaricious New York editor, hoping to boost sales of his newspaper, brings Homer and his exclusive doctor on an all-expenses-paid final fling to New York. But Homer’s not really dying. His doctor made up the disease by mistake – and continues the ruse to keep LIVING IT UP on the newspaper’s dime. So what happens when Homer continues to not die?…

Jerry Lewis is Homer (of course his name is Homer), who desperately tries to leave his native dustbowl of Desert Hole, New Mexico, by stealing a car from an atomic test site. When it is discovered the car may be radioactive, he is diagnosed with radiation poisoning. Dean Martin is Dr. Steve Harris (of course his name is Steve), the local singing quack who realizes his mistaken diagnosis only after the news has been published in national papers.

Dean and Jerry race to make the last booty call at the Playboy mansion.

In the offices of The New York Chronicle, reporter Wally Cook (Janet Leigh and her pointy bra) pitches a story to her exasperated editor, Oliver Stone (Fred Clark, who was “Old Skinhead” in THE CADDY), of a dying boy with a rare disease whose last wish is to see New York, and how it would boost The Chronicle’s sales if it was to fund that wish, also nabbing the exclusive day-to-day story of Homer until his death.

Dr. Harris meets firecracker Wally, is immediately smitten by her pointy bra, and his intent to tell the truth goes out the door with his Hippocratic Oath (the plaque of which cracks open on his skull).

(And no, Steve Harris was not yet Iron Maiden’s galloping bassist, and Oliver Stone was not yet the insurrectionist filmmaker…)

So New York welcomes Homer and Steve unto its bosom, with Steve trying to make Wally at every opportunity, and Homer exploiting the generosity of The Chronicle (ordering tailor-made suits, manicures, and 3000 shrimp cocktails for his hordes of admirers keeping vigil outside the hotel), while Oliver Stone grimaces and prays for Homer’s quick demise…

1954’s LIVING IT UP is a lively remake of 1937’s NOTHING SACRED (starring Carole Lombard and Fredric March), with screenwriter Melville Shavelson and director Norman Taurog (on his fourth Martin and Lewis feature) reworking the tale around Martin and Lewis’s screwball antics; borrowing songs from HAZEL FLAGG, the successful 1953 Broadway musical inspired by the original movie (music, Jule Styne; lyrics, Bob Hilliard). Thus, every time Wally wants to bring in specialist doctors to examine Homer, Steve keeps croon-blocking her, sneaking in How Do You Speak To An Angel? and Money Burns A Hole In My Pocket. Homer duets with Steve on the catchy Every Street’s A Boulevard In Old New York, where they don top-and-tails and tap their way across the city, Jerry’s caterwauling somehow gelling with Dean’s velvet fog.

Sheree North – would have been the next Marilyn Monroe,
if she wasn’t so talented.

And as they sing about New York, we have to remember: these guys were the kings of that town, packing the seats and the streets during their appearances; no strangers to the song’s sentiments: “All the folks who live on a street like 11 / Are as fine as the family on a hundred and seven…” “It’s a thrill to shop on 34^th Street / Or down in Union Square…” “Just remember there’s the East Side / And the West Side / And Uptown and Down / That’s why we’re proud to be a part of New York town!” I can imagine this song alone, even without the context of the movie, endearing them to their rabid fans.

And the dancing! These guys were not just pratfallers and jokesters – they could really hoof it! Adept at all the current styles of vaudeville and tap-dancing, when they floated in sync it was a thing of beauty! Jerry even showcases his ferocious jitterbugging (in a scene featuring actress/dancer Sheree North, who was touted as “the girl who would take over from Marilyn Monroe”). It’s these scenes that remind us of the amount of work that went into the upkeep of the Martin-Lewis comedy team, and how they sweated blood to stay miles ahead of anything else that was out there.

An actual plot and predicament, a remake of a well-loved farce, hit songs from the popular stage play, their second feature film in color, and grand farce performances from the highest paid comedy team in the world – all contribute to LIVING IT UP becoming one of the top-grossing Martin and Lewis movies, and ultimately one of their true “classics.”

It is when three international doctors actually get a chance to examine Homer’s x-rays that Homer’s and Steve’s jig is up. Setting the stage for the funniest scene in the movie: Jerry showcasing his extraordinary mimicry when he plays all three doctors (from Vienna, Hong Kong and Paris) to distract them from his/Homer’s condition. Watch for the fastidious Sig Ruman, reprising his role from the 1937 film as Dr. Egelhofer from Vienna.

The scene before the doctors’ visit shows Steve trying to send Homer into a coma by sparring with him and punching him on the chin. Strangely enough, this scene is almost a replica of the scene in NOTHING SACRED – but we wonder how that can be, as that previous radiation patient was a woman. Well, that’s how weird that woman-bashing scene feels (even though it’s funny), as Carole Lombard is knocked out by Fredric March through a sock on the jaw.

3rd Base – 1950’s style!

The only time a gleeful look would cross editor Oliver’s face is when Homer faints or seems close to the end. When the international doctors report Homer’s clean bill of health to Oliver, he becomes as murderous as the “sluggers” he calls in, to ensure Homer’s death, and to staunch the newspaper hemorrhaging money. He repeats the same dialogue from the original, to Wally (who still thinks Homer is sick), “I am sitting here, toying with the idea of removing your heart and stuffing it like an olive.”

Sexy Wally, with a waist the size of a wrist, promises herself to Steve, although this is a contrivance just to follow Romantic Movie Protocol. Steve might want to go straight, being in love with Wally (“the works: marriage, white picket fence”), but he neglects to take her workaholic characteristics into account. She’s an ink-blooded newspaper hound through and through, “married to the front page of The Chronicle.” Why should her career be stultified or her character become subservient just because Steve proclaims his love for her? Just another sign of how women were treated in those times – taking it for granted Wally is working hard merely until she finds a man, and then she’ll settle with the barefoot-in-kitchen-three-kids routine!

By the time Homer is faking his suicide, the farce has escalated out of control. Whereas he and Steve were lodged in the upscale Park Ritz, the movie concludes with them as street-sweepers in front of it. In the simplistic “up” ending, that doesn’t delve into the darker areas of attempted murder, fraud, and perjury, Homer and Steve are still in love with the town, as they reprise Every Street’s A Boulevard from street level…

END

“At first I thought I was the handsome one – then I saw how much I was carrying.”

The Gulf between Golf and Guff.

A talented golfer and his equally-talented yet disruptive caddy enter golfing tournaments and end up in comedy. Kinda like Tiger Woods.

THE CADDY opens with massive crowds jamming the streets of New York. They’re all cheering at something high in one of the hotels lining the street. Flyers are seen fluttering down onto the throng. It looks like stock footage of Beatlemania. But it’s real footage – of the hysteria caused by Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis when they were the kings of the comedy nightclub circuit in America.

We cut away to a closeup of Joe Anthony (Dean Martin) and Harvey Miller (Jerry Lewis) hanging out a hotel window, greeting the masses and throwing out headshots of themselves. This is filmed footage for this movie; these guys are THE in-demand nightclub team, just before another sold-out show. Joe’s mama and papa are backstage, and as the dynamic duo head onstage and perform a simulacrum of their real-life song-and-dance-and-madness act, dueting and soft-shoeing What Wouldcha Do Without Me?, Joe’s papa (Joseph Calleia) tells a reporter the tale of how the two became such superstars…

Crosby and Hope:
The road started here…

Before we proceed with THE CADDY, it must be noted that Dean and Jerry were not the first to promote that raucous nightclub act of songs-sprinkled-with-comedy. In 1932 Bob Hope and Bing Crosby were accidentally paired onstage and started doing a form of Vaudevillian singing-and-ad-libbing; Crosby the crooner and Hope the ad-libbing animal. It was a hit, but it was just a lark that was never pursued. In 1940, their chemistry was captured in the first of seven ROAD films, ROAD TO SINGAPORE.

Yes, Hope and Crosby pioneered the form (and it was slightly more cerebral than Martin and Lewis’s version, which was more dependent on Lewis’s slapstick), but Martin and Lewis made that singing-and-gagging format theirs, in their irrepressible live shows, bringing an unbridled fury and physicality to the stage, never before seen by audiences used to crowding around the radio for their entertainment. They were The Rolling Stones to Hope-and-Crosby’s Beatles.

Also, I don’t say “slapstick” in a derogatory sense. Martin and Lewis were a fine-tuned machine: each gesture, each pratfall, each hand-into-the-mouth, each grope-across-the-chest, each jump-into-the-arms is a practiced art. When their act made the leap to movies, Jerry himself professes they would rehearse so solidly that their lightning-strike timing usually necessitated just one take. Rather than let cinematographers bully them into second or more takes due to missing lines in a boom mic, or because the lighting wasn’t good upstage, etc., they argued that the energy and urgency of each take could not be replicated, so we are usually seeing the first takes of their routines!

… THE CADDY jogs into flashback, showing Harvey (Lewis) as a prodigy golfer, yet unable to play in tournaments due to stagefright. His fiancé Lisa (beautiful Barbara Bates, who resembles Paulette Goddard in a pointy bra) suggests he become a golf instructor instead. Lisa’s prodigal brother Joe (Martin) returns home from wandering the country. Upon realizing Joe is a gifted golfer, Harvey suggests Joe enters tournaments, with Harvey as caddy.

For playing hooky to go watch a golf tournament, Harvey and Lisa are fired from their department store job, in a slapstick sequence that features intrepid character actor Fred Clark as their boss. (Clark would soon play the newspaper editor in Martin and Lewis’s classic, LIVING IT UP.) And Joe doesn’t want to return to work on his father’s fishing boat. So golf it is.

Kissing without hands: hard, but not impossible.

This would be the first Martin & Lewis film where Dean embraces his Italian heritage with such verve. Up to this point in film, his Italian background is merely referred to, but here, his parents are Old Country and (with the help of Jerry and his family) he croons his most memorable, most Mediterranean song, which cites the Italian word for love – That’s Amore. (Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1953, it would peak on the Billboard charts at #2.)

We sense a real camaraderie between Dean and Jerry in this film. They seem to be getting closer. So we are stunned when their “breakup” also seems so real. After hitting it big, Joe starts treating Harvey like the help, ignoring his advice, running off with a girl (Donna Reed as Kathy), giving up practicing, and giving up golf; almost like he wants to return to his wasteful life on the road. Not since their fifth film, THE STOOGE, has Dean’s venom seemed so biting. Now we realize why director Norman Taurog started the movie as he did: If we had not seen Joe’s and Harvey’s success, this breakup might have left a bad taste in our mouths. But it’s simply a testament to how convincing Martin and Lewis are as dramatic actors; they know when and how to make it hurtful. They are never given enough credit for this side of their talents. (As it is, the REAL breakup is a mere three years away; it just seems longer, because they cranked out 16 films in a 7 year period.)

Harvey does a solo song, The Gay Continental, while he dons his sophisticate demeanor to infiltrate the yuppie country club where Kathy has taken Joe for a forbidden week of pointy-bra undoing.

Golfing is a hobby that is obviously dear to our stars’ hearts, and I can see how scoring cameos from famous golfers of the day (like Ben Hogan, Sam Snead and Byron Nelson) might gladden some fans’ hearts. But I don’t care.

Due to Harvey’s constant haranguing, Joe is disqualified from the tournament circuit, but all through their golfing stint a rotund agent has been witnessing and guffawing at Joe and Harvey’s comedic interactions and advises them to go into nightclub entertainment. Which they do, because apparently nothing clears up stagefright better than being a caddy.

In the final scene, when our heroes Joe and Harvey are coming offstage to raucous applause, after reprising an energetic What Wouldcha Do Without Me? (but now, poignantly, reworded to, What Would I Do Without You?), they run into – Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis – in a split-screen cameo that is awesome for its day.

And in their real guises, it’s nice to see Dean and Jerry exchange some real friendly repartee, as they see their stage personas walk off with their dolled-up dames (Dean: “How lucky can two guys get?” Jerry: “Yeah, we got it real bad, ain’t we, Dean?”); real respect, real love. If only…

END