Jerry Lewis brought an imaginative, surreal sense of humor to the table when he began directing. This is what the Cahiers du Cinema gang loved about his signature, and the reason his early to mid ’60s films — The Bellboy, The Ladies Man, The Errand Boy, The Nutty Professor, The Patsy — are currently respected. This bongo drums bit in Visit to a Small Planet, directed by Norman Taurog just before Lewis directed The Bellboy, was a typical Lewis creation. Different and innovative, certainly for its time.
Why am I mentioning this? Because tonight is Jerry Lewis night at the Aero. The 90 year-old legend will sit for a post-q & a following a special screening of Daniel Noah‘s Max Rose.
Notice Stanley Kubrick favorite Joe Turkel (Paths of Glory, The Shining) as a generic Beatnik type. Turkel isn’t listed in the credits, but it’s him.
Visit to a Small Planet Wikipage: “Gore Vidal wrote Visit as a TV play. It aired on 5.8.55 on Goodyear Television Playhouse. Vidal intended a satire on the post-World War II fear of communism in the United States, McCarthyism, Cold War military paranoia and the rising importance of television in American life.