Enfant Terrible!: Jerry Lewis in American Film

Published by New York University Press 2002

Enfant Terrible!

Jerry Lewis in American Film

Edited by: Murray Pomerance

https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9780814768624.001.0001

Overview
Contents

About this book

A witty and provocative re-evaluation of the phenomenon known as Jerry Lewis, an accomplished yet controversial figure in American cinema.

The one thing everybody knows about Jerry Lewis is that he is beloved by the French, those incomprehensible hedonistic strangers across the sea. The French understand him, while in the U.S. he is at best a riddle, not one of us. Lewis is someone we take profound pleasure in excluding, if not ridiculing.
Enfant Terrible! Jerry Lewis in American Film is the first comprehensive collection devoted to one of the most controversial and accomplished figures in twentieth-century American cinema. A veteran of virtually every form of show business, Lewis's performances onscreen and the motion pictures he has directed reveal significant filmmaking talents, and show him to be what he has called himself, a "total filmmaker." Yet his work has been frequently derided by American critics.
This book challenges that easy reading by taking a more careful look at Lewis's considerable body of work onscreen in 16 diverse and penetrating essays. Turning to such films asThe Nutty Professor, The Ladies Man, The King of Comedy, The Delicate Delinquent, Living It Up, The Errand Boy, The Disorderly Orderly, Arizona Dream, and The Geisha Boy, the contributors address topics ranging from Lewis's on- and offscreen performances, the representations of disability in his films, and the European obsession with Lewis, to his relationship with Dean Martin and Lewis's masculinity. Far from an out of control hysteric, Enfant Terrible! instead reveals Jerry Lewis to be a meticulous master of performance with a keen sense of American culture and the contemporary world.
Contributors include: Mikita Brottman, Scott Bukatman, David Desser, Leslie A. Fiedler, Craig Fischer, Lucy Fischer, Krin Gabbard, Barry Keith Grant, Andrew Horton, Susan Hunt, Frank Krutnik, Marcia Landy, Peter Lehman, Shawn Levy, Dana Polan, Murray Pomerance, and J. P. Telotte.

Author / Editor information

Pomerance Murray :

Murray Pomerance is Chair of the Department of Sociology at Ryerson University, whose edited volumes include Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls: Gender in Film at the End of the Twentieth Century, and Sugar, Spice and Everything Nice: Cinemas of Girlhood.

Reviews

David Cronenberg:
A witty, provocative, and necessary re-evaluation of the phenomenon known as Jerry Lewis. I myself have loved and despised Jerry, often both at the same time; I needed this book to tell me why.

These original, varied approaches are the heftiest appreciation of Lewis in English... Recommended.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Contributors Murray Pomerance Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
I. Jerry and Me
1. Whatever Happened to Jerry Lewis? “That’s Amore . . .” Leslie Fiedler Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	19
2. Being Rupert Pupkin Shawn Levy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	31
2. Jerry Lewis, Faces Off
3. Dreaming of Jerry Lewis’s Arizona Dream Andrew Horton Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	43
4. Jerry Agonistes: An Obscure Object of Critical Desire Marcia Landy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	59
5. Flaming Creature: Jerry Lewis and Screen Performance in Hollywood or Bust Craig Fischer Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	75
6. The Day the Clown Quit: Jerry Lewis Returns to The Jazz Singer’s Roots Krin Gabbard Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	91
3. Jerry Lewis and Social Transformations
7. Sex and Slapstick: The Martin and Lewis Phenomenon Frank Krutnik Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	109
8. The Imbecile Chic of Jerry Lewis Mikita Brottman Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	123
9. Sick Jokes: Humor and Health in the Work of Jerry Lewis Lucy Fischer Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	137
10. The Geisha Boy: Orientalizing the Jewish Man David Desser Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	153
11. Jerry in the City: The Topology of The King of Comedy J. Telotte Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	167
12. Terminal Idiocy (The comedian is the message) Scott Bukatman Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	181
4. Jerry-Built
13. “The Inner Man”: Mind, Body, and Transformations of Masculinity in The Nutty Professor Peter Lehman and Susan Hunt Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	195
14. Working Hard Hardly Working: Labor and Leisure in the Films of Jerry Lewis Dana Polan Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	211
15. Hello Deli!: Shtick Meets Teenpic in The Delicate Delinquent Barry Grant Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	225
16. The Errant Boy: Morty S. Tashman and the Powers of the Tongue Murray Pomerance Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	239
Works Cited Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	256
Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	265
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	269

Language: English
Publisher: New York University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;

eBook

Published: November 1, 2002
ISBN: 9780814768624