The Bellboy (1960)

(On Cable TV, September 2022) Considering the unusual circumstances that led to The Bellboy, it’s perfectly understandable if the film is almost unlike any other. At the time of its production, Jerry Lewis was transitioning to a solo film career after the break-up of his duo with Dean Martin and trying to meet both movie and live performance commitments. Accordingly, The Bellboy (his first film as a director) was conceived as a project he could complete while holding a daily show at Miami Beach’s Fontainebleau Hotel—moviemaking by day, nightclub performances by night. All done in 28 days, with Lewis inventing the video assist technique along the way. The film, unsurprisingly, revolves around a bellboy protagonist getting involved at various hijinks at and around the Fontainebleau Hotel. But if you think that’s lazy, consider the added difficulties that Lewis, as a writer-director-producer-star, placed upon himself: He plays a mostly silent role, explodes the film’s plot in separate comic vignettes, shifts between various comic styles, pays homage to past comic masters, self-insert in the film as a visiting Jerry Lewis, and keeps the energy of an anarchic film going through 72 minutes. The individual gags themselves can be as short as a few seconds. Pay attention, and you’ll spot cameos from Milton Berle, a Stanley Laurel impersonator, and a glimpse at the circa 1960 Miami Beach lifestyle. The humour can be intensely absurd at times, feeling surprisingly timeless. The opening moments of The Bellboy, featuring a “movie studio executive” warning us about the plotless nature of the film to come, are arguably funnier upon re-watch. It still fells like a very unconventional comedy—almost daring, in fact: the kind of thing only a writer-director-producer-star with remarkable pull could bring to fruition. Not all of it is good, but what works usually compensates for the rest. Even those who are lukewarm on Lewis’ style of comedy will find something interesting in The Bellboy.