Debate still rages on Lewis’ film legacy

Friday, April 14, 2000 | 9:58 a.m.

Hey, la-a-a-dy! Jerry Lewis is back!

Not that the comedian ever left -- Lewis has been a major presence in the entertainment world since he and Dean Martin teamed up in 1946 and shot to international stardom.

Although his visibility has ebbed and flowed with changing times, Lewis is a survivor. So strong is his urge to survive that he came back from death following a heart attack in 1983 that left him clinically dead for 17 seconds.

Lewis's career has included surviving assassination attempts by American critics most of his life. Most of the anti-Lewis criticism is aimed at his films, although many say it is his abrasive personality they don't like.

Apparently the critics have been firing blanks, because Lewis is still around doing what he has done for most of his 74 years -- entertaining adoring fans who overlook his foibles and peccadillos.

Among Lewis' vocal fans are Steven Spielberg, Woody Allen, Steve Martin, Robin Williams, Eddie Murphy and Jim Carrey.

And fans will be rewarded Monday through Wednesday as the Orleans hotel-casino hosts a Jerry Lewis Film Festival. On Tuesday night Lewis, a Las Vegas resident, will introduce "The Errand Boy" and, after the film, join in a question-and-answer session. And Mayor Oscar Goodman will host a cocktail reception for Lewis.

(Lewis will also perform at the Orleans April 21-24.)

Three major studios have announced plans to remake the movies to be shown at the festival, with Disney doing "The Errand Boy," MGM doing "The Bellboy" and New Line Cinema doing "Cinderfella."

These are among the more than 30 films Lewis made without Martin. Together they made 16 movies.

Hollywood latched onto the pair soon after they became sensations on the nightclub circuit in 1946. Producer Hall Wallis and Paramount Pictures signed them to a long-term, two-pictures-per-year contract. Their first one, "My Friend Irma," was made in 1949, and their last, "Hollywood or Bust" was made in 1956.

Lewis, a workaholic, almost immediately submerged himself in studying the art and technology of films. Following his break-up with Martin he focused most of his energies on movies, either as star, producer, directer or writer. For at least six of them, he sat in all four chairs.

Although Lewis has been in the public eye for most of his life, he remains a mystery. An admitted perfectionist with an ego the size of a silver screen, to some he is everything bad about American entertainment, to others he is everything good. In France he is a national hero.

He is a man of many personalities -- given to acts of great charity (his annual telethon has raised over $1 billion for the Muscular Dystrophy Association), fits of anger, outspokenness, pettiness, love and creativity.

Countless articles have been written about Lewis -- the most recent a profile by James Kaplan in the Feb. 7 issue of the New Yorker magazine. Kaplan said that Lewis is a genius at physical comedy, but "there is something disturbing about his relentless energy and his ego."

Frank Krutnik, a film lecturer at the Roehampton Institute in London, said that Lewis' films are about Lewis himself. "His whole career is an interesting text. His work pushes beyond normal comedy to become films about Jerry Lewis," he said.

Krutnik has written a book entitled "Inventing Jerry Lewis" (Smithsonian Institution Press, $44.95), which is a scholarly look at Lewis' public persona. He said that the book is a "nonbiased assessment that is long overdue. I hope Lewis will realize what I have done is not a hatchet job."

Krutnik described the star as both Frankenstein and Frankenstein's monster. "Lewis' greatest achievement is the creation of Jerry Lewis," Krutnik said. "His personality is so caught up in his public profile that, for me, you arguably can't distinguish him. It's difficult for Lewis to step aside. He is the scientist and the monster.

"His whole life is one performance. I can't imagine what he would do if he stopped."

To maintain the public image, Lewis tries to control all information that comes out about him. "The biggest battle he has had is to attempt to control the public persona," Krutnik said. "It is almost a Greek myth in some ways."

According to Krutnik, Lewis' biggest problem may be himself. "Lewis gets in the way. He is very outspoken and won't mind his tongue," he said.

Most recently Lewis stunned an audience attending the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colo., in February when said he doesn't like female comics. A few days later he issued a "humble apology" and said there were a few female comedians he liked, such as Whoopi Goldberg, Elayne Boosler and Phyllis Diller.

Lewis' star dims

Krutnik said that in the mid-'60s Lewis became a victim of a "cultural shift," just as other stars of his era did, such as Bob Hope and Kirk Douglas. "They were displaced by a new breed," he said. It was the era of "Easy Rider."

Krutnik said there was also a vicious battle in the '60s between France and the United States over his reputation. The French raved about him, but in America his films were considered embarrassments -- nothing more than babysitters -- by intellectuals.

"I am very intrigued that Lewis is still a problem for some people within the States. I wanted to explore how he is loved by so many, and to so many others he is somewhat of a problem. He is a cultural conundrum ... a cultural enigma," Krutnik said.

Krutnik had one experience with Lewis when beginning his book, a meeting not atypical. "He was here in London with a tour of 'Damn Yankees.' I tried to interview him. But there was one problem. I once wrote an article called 'Jerry Lewis: The Deformation of the Comic' and he took offense at my use of the term 'deformation.'

"One thing about Jerry Lewis, and it's a key issue of my book, is that he very jealously guards his public reputation. "He called me up and it was very much an imperial encounter -- he was a great man, calling me to tell me he was refusing to do the interview."

Kundrik's respect for Lewis did not change because of the rebuff. "He has had a lot of bad press. It was a demonstration of how defensive he is," he said.

(In responding to requests to interview Lewis for this story, a Lewis spokesman said the entertainer was unavailable for comment).

Lauding Lewis

For some it is very hard to love Lewis. For others it is hard not to.

Dale Melgaard, who teaches in the film department at UNLV, is an unabashed fan.

Melgaard received his master's degree in film from USC in the early '90s, several years after Lewis published a director's text book entitled "The Total Film Maker" and taught a course in film directing at the private university in Los Angeles.

"Jerry is still a legend at USC,"said Melgaard, who not only studied at the school where Lewis is most revered, but spent the '80s in France, where Lewis is a god. "I was pursuing an acting career. I was in Paris in 1984 when Jerry was awarded the French Legion of Honor medal," he said.

Melgaard teaches a course about Charlie Chaplin and hopes one day to teach one about Lewis. "Many American critics are not kind to Jerry because they say he is trying to imitate Chaplin. But all great artists have a model they begin with, and then they become their own persona," Melgaard said. "Chaplin's characters didn't just come out of thin air. He had models and antecedents that formed his Tramp character."

Melgaard said he believes that some similar traits in Chaplin and Lewis may be the reason Lewis has not had greater respect among critics.

The outspoken Chaplin, a British citizen, was branded a communist by the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952 and his visa was revoked.

"People don't like the fact that Lewis is outspoken on certain issues," Melgaard said. "Jerry is involved with his charity, and for some reason a lot of people have a problem with that -- they think he is grandstanding or has ulterior motives. But many of Lewis' impulses are humanitarian."

In Lewis' defense, Melgaard said that Lewis shouldn't have to censor himself to elevate his status in America to the level it is internationally.

"People take what he says way too seriously, but I think it goes deeper than that," he said. "In America comedians have never been appreciated for their talent in general, though most other countries of the world appreciate comedians. Chaplin's humor goes back through 200 years of slapstick humor -- to the days of the harlequins, those guys in the checkered suits."

It is rare for a comedy to win an Academy Award for best picture. It is even more rare for a comedian to win an Oscar. The Oscar-winning actor who most closely resembles Lewis' brand of humorist is Roberto Benigni, the 1998 winner who starred in "Life Is Beautiful."

Benigni has been described as an Italian Jerry Lewis, and "Life is Beautiful" is very similar thematically to a film Lewis made in the early '70s but, for some unexplained reason, has refused to release -- "The Day the Clown Cried."

The Benigni film was about a Jewish father who used humor to hide the horrors of a concentration camp from his young son; Lewis' unreleased film is about a Jewish clown who was required to entertain children just before they are sent to the gas chamber by their Nazi captors.

Melgaard said that Benigni owes his style to Lewis. "By just looking at his films you can tell Benigni was heavily influenced by Lewis, but I don't know if he has ever given Jerry credit," Melgaard said.

Other industry giants admit that Lewis is a mentor. "Jim Carrey has been humble enough to give credit where credit is due," Melgaard said.

Spielberg, early in his career, recognized Lewis' genius and even appeared before the class Lewis was teaching on film at USC.

Melgaard said there is a resurgence in interest in Lewis because of recent occurrences such as Carrey acknowledging him and the success of Eddie Murphy's 1996 remake of Lewis' classic "The Nutty Professor."

Melgaard describes Lewis as one of history's most gifted physical comics.

"People don't realize it takes an enormous amount of talent from different disciplines to bring together a great comic like Lewis. He must be an athlete, physically skilled, an acrobat, a tumbler, a pantomime, a dancer. At all these skills Jerry and Chaplin are masters, which is why their comedies come off so well. They have incredible body control," he said.

Melgaard places Chaplin and Lewis on the same level also because of their social consciences.

"They both combine social commentary with their comedy. In 'Cinderfella,' 'Bellboy' and 'Errand Boy' he's playing the role of someone in society who's at the bottom of the socio-economic scale, like Chaplin's tramp," Melgaard said. "Both Lewis and Chaplin are so versatile they have the ability to move up and down the social scale and make it believable.

"Lewis has the artistic courage to take films and tackle subject matter not very intersting in the grand scheme of things. Bellboys and errand boys are not careers people aspire to," Melgaard said.

He described the themes of Lewis' films as timeless, dealing with "eccentric people, stereotypical professors or working class guys at the bottom of the economic scale. It has timeless appeal that is universal -- there are more poor people than rich. (Lewis' films have) the types of social situations that are never going to go away."

Vive la Lewis

The French look at Lewis' films more deeply than do most Americans.

They have elevated Lewis to the level of "auteur," or author. The French believe films reflect the director's personality, not the writers' and actors'. Both Lewis and Alfred Hitchcock are looked upon as "auteurs" in France.

"The film director writes with the camera," Melgaard said. "They may be given the same status as a great novelist -- and that's the status they gave Jerry Lewis. And I feel it is well deserved, because comedy is the most difficult thing to do."

Film historian Peter C. Rollins, who is not a fan of Lewis, said "The jury is still out on the legacy and aura of Jerry Lewis as a film auteur."

Rollins, a professor of English at Oklahoma State University and editor in chief of the nonprofit Popular Culture Center, doesn't deny Lewis' significance in film but doesn't buy into the intellectual analysis.

"Speaking for myself, who has studied film over 20 years, I have great difficulty accepting the European perspective," Rollins said.

Rollins noted that Lewis "is in some respects a mysterious and multifaceted screen image. On the one hand, Americans see him in the slapstick comedy tradition of the Three Stooges. On the other hand, Europeans, who have their own particular take on U.S. culture (which is usually negative), see him in a much more profound comedy tradition of Charlie Chaplin and other screen comics who make serious comments on society and culture. There is still a big debate about which perspective is the more accurate."

On the other hand, Marshal Fine, a film critic for Gannett News Service, is a big fan. "My wife forbids me to watch his telethon. I sit there and hoot. It's a throwback to another era," Fine said. "As a kid I saw all his movies.

"He never got respect from the critics."

Fine said he has a "morbid fascination with Lewis. When the New Yorker article came out, I devoured it. He's a larger-than-life figure. At the same time there's a monstrousness about him. He knows it, but he wants to be liked. He wants everyone to love him. He feels like he has never been loved by people who should love him,"

Fine saw him as a comedy god in the '50s and '60s.

"Take Jim Carrey today and triple it. But he was savaged by critics, even then," Fine said. "He was certainly the predominant physical comedian of his era.

"I wouldn't be surprised if at some point in the future we see a whole new generation of people embrace him."

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