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The Patsy (1964)
In actor/director/co-writer Jerry Lewis' comedy about
Hollywood pretense and celebrity, similar to Frank Tashlin's The
Girl Can't Help It (1956) and even My Fair Lady (1964),The
King of Comedy (1982), and Trading Places (1983):
- the film's premise: following the death of famous
comic Wally Brandford in an airplane crash in Alaska (footage from The
Mountain (1956)), klutzy Beverly Hilton Hotel bellhop Stanley
Belt (Jerry Lewis) - a totally-untalented unknown nebbish - was
recruited and trained to replace him by a management team composed
of an entourage of Hollywood professionals, including impresario/producer
Caryl Fergusson (Everett Sloane), joke writer Chic Wymore (Phil
Harris), publicist/press agent Harry Silver (Keenan Wynn), director
Morgan Heywood (Peter Lorre in his last film appearance), stylist/valet
Bruce Alden (John Carradine), and secretary Ellen Betz (Ina Balin),
Stanley's future love interest
- the timely appearance of bumbling, no-talent, red-blazered
bell-hop Stanley into a hotel suite - clumsily dropping a tray of
glasses and bucket of ice cubes, and eventually falling off a balcony
into the hotel's swimming pool
- the scene of Stanley receiving voice lessons from
music Professor Mulerr (Hans Conreid), and Stanley's multiple close-calls
destroying the teacher's priceless antiques collection in the extravagant
music studio; at the end of the training sequence during Mulerr's
painfully long-held note after his right hand had been smashed inside
the grand piano lid (and Stanley's own dissonant note joining him),
the walls and ceiling of the room crumbled and self-destructed
Stanley's Disastrous Voice Lessons
in Professor Mulerr's Music Studio
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- the sequence of Stanley's failed lip-synching recording
session, as he first made his way through a cluster of microphones,
booms, and cables to an uncooperative music stand; when he attempted
to sing, Stanley's voice was inaudible; someone in the control
room yelled out: "I need more voice from the trio!" -
Stanley was seen to be backed by a trio of singers (three incarnations
of himself, all in ugly drag) who were singing "yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah"
- Stanley's horrible live, lip-synching performance
(to a pre-existing track) of his single: "I Lost My Heart in
a Drive-In Movie" - a Billboard # 1 smash hit, on the KLUTZ-TV
show, Teenage Dance Time, where he was first introduced by
Dick Clark-lookalike Lloyd (Lloyd Thaxton); as the song began, Stanley
mimed plucking guitar strings with his necktie, then missed his starting
cue and began singing completely out-of-synch - and using four different
'voices'; as various keywords were heard, he pantomimed corresponding
actions (for example, "heart"
- he placed his hand over his heart, "drive-in movie" - he
pretended to steer a car, at the sound of a honking horn - he did one
pelvic thrust, and along with the line: "I wasn’t a bit
hungry. I just wanted to taste her lip" - he puckered up with
fish-lips, etc.)
- the scene of Stanley's stage-fright during a very
unsuccessful appearance at the Copa Café nightclub during
his debut performance, when he stumbled onto the stage, clumsily
interacted with the microphone, and then delivered an awful, stand-up
joke-telling comedy act: "On the way here, my dog chased the
car a lot. Uh, speaking of my uncle, he said I'm a psycho ceramic.
And I said, 'Oh! What's that?' And he said, 'A crackpot.' My uncle
said it. Then l have, uh, an aunt. l mean, l have a... And, uh, very
absent-minded. And one day, uh, she had an itch and she poured syrup
down her back and scratched her waffle...Are there any requests?";
someone in the hostile audience yelled back: "Yeah! Get off!";
he then suggested "I could do a number - my hit record - would
anyone like to see that?”, but after he ineptly failed to set
up a phonograph player for lip-synching his hit song and broke the
record, he ad-libbed: "I could hum a part of it. Since you love
jokes, that would be good, then. And since the phonograph wasn’t
good, then maybe I could remember the song by heart - it would be
better if I remembered it by mouth" - finally, after
garbled attempts at singing, he did a few facial gags, and then asked: "Do
you wanna hear more of that song?" - and his handlers in the
audience magically transformed into a firing squad shooting at him
- the flashback fantasy sequence of Stanley's humiliating
high-school prom dance-hop experience, that he reminisced about with
Ellen; he recalled how he had been mocked by other students for his
rented tuxedo before he met the equally-gawky, teenaged Ellen and
danced with her in the gymnasium of Harrington Heights HS; Ellen
kindly reminded him after their shared memory together: "Of
course it was good. The sweet things and the good things aren't always
the things that make us better people. I think the heartaches and
pleasant things, even the heavy burdens we've had placed upon us,
make us stronger in the long run. And yes, it's nice to have pretty
memories, and our hearts are happier when pain doesn't exist. But
'bad' is a test. If we can carry on after a bad thing happens, then
we've grown up some. Wouldn't you agree?"
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Flashback: Stanley's Awkward Prom Night With Ellen
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- Stanley's climactic live-TV appearance on The
Ed Sullivan Show, a "Big Night in Hollywood" silent
pantomime skit, where he was introduced with a nod to Lewis himself: "The
Beatles [and] Martin and Lewis all made their debuts"
- in the finale, after Stanley had been disowned by
his entourage because they thought he was a failure, Stanley fell
backwards to his 'death' from the hotel suite's 10th floor balcony
when backing up from the ever-loyal Ellen; she began weeping, but
when he reappeared (revealing it was only a fake cityscape set),
he reassured her, and used her real name (Ina Balin): "Aren't
you overacting a little bit, Ms. Balling, Balin, Balin? It's a movie,
see? I'm fine. The people in the theater know I ain't gonna die.
It's a movie stage. Here, look at this, see? There's wires and lights
and I'm gonna make more movies. So I couldn't die. It's like a make-believe.
It's a dumb city"
- when she responded to his real self: "Mr. Lewis,
you are a complete nut," he replied, in jest: "Which reminds
me, I'm having nuts and whipped cream for lunch. Would you join me
please? Crew - that's lunch! One hour for the actors and seven days
for the technicians. It's a movie set breaking once and for all,
to go to have lunch..."
- the camera reversed itself and broke the fourth wall, revealing the
crew on the other side of the camera, as he walked off arm-in-arm with
Ellen (Ina Balin); he had proved to be a success
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Clumsy Beverly Hilton Hotel bellhop Stanley Belt (Jerry
Lewis)
Stanley's Failed Lip-Synching Recording Session (Backed
by a Trio)
Stanley's Live Performance of "I Lost My Heart
in a Drive-In Movie"
Stanley's Debut at the Copa Cafe Nightclub
Firing Squad After Failed Performance
Ellen (Ina Balin) to Stanley: "If we can
carry on after a bad thing happens..."
Stanley's Faked 'Death'
"Crew - that's lunch!"
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