Jerry Lewis Film Series and Exhibit Coming to Moma
Moma will be celebrating the career of comedian Jerry Lewis with screenings of home movies, and seven feature films, as well as an exhibition of storyboards from The Nutty Professor and more.
The Unknown Jerry: Home Movies and More from the Jerry Lewis Collection at the Library of Congress will run for 9 days debuting on October 2 and running through October 11. The Nutty Professor Storyboards will be on display from October 6 through the month of February.
The combined project is meant to acknowledge the entertainer’s singular eye as a director. The Unknown Jerry: Home Movies and More from the Jerry Lewis Collection at the Library of Congress, screening in The Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters from October 2 through 11, includes seven feature films directed by Lewis—including classic titles such as The Nutty Professor (1963), The Errand Boy (1961), and The Bellboy (1960), among others— and the premiere of Lewis’s home movies, newly preserved by the Library of Congress. Chris Lewis, Jerry Lewis’s son and the president and CEO of the American Wheelchair Mission, and Rob Stone, moving image curator at the Library of Congress, will be present for discussions following selected screenings.
On view October 6, 2018, through February 2019 in The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater Galleries, Looking at Jerry Lewis: The Nutty Professor Storyboards includes 11 storyboard sequences by illustrator John Lauris Jensen (1924–2003) for Lewis’s iconic film. The Unknown Jerry is organized by Dave Kehr, Curator, Department of Film. Looking at Jerry Lewis is organized by Ron Magliozzi, Curator, Department of Film.
The Unknown Jerry film series includes four feature films directed by Lewis and five programs of Lewis’s legendary home movies, which are being presented for the first time in public screenings. Made between 1951 and 1956, these “Gar-Ron Productions” (the name comes from Jerry and Patti Lewis’s two oldest sons, Gary and Ron) are thoroughly professional productions, filmed in 16mm with synchronized sound and featuring a cast of the Lewis family’s closest friends, including Janet Leigh, Tony Curtis, and Dean Martin. Newly preserved by the Library of Congress, these apprentice works reveal an intuitive understanding of framing and cutting that would blossom with Lewis’s great feature films of the 1960s.
The gallery exhibition Looking at Jerry Lewis complements this film series, and includes original hand-drawn storyboards for The Nutty Professor created by master illustrator John Lauris Jensen. Jensen began his film career in the 1950s as an illustrator at Paramount Pictures. Although he is better known for his work on period action films and Westerns, Jensen was equally skilled at visualizing physical and dramatic comedy, as evident in his collaborations with Jerry Lewis, including The Bellboy and The Family Jewels (1965).
A recent gift to the Museum from Chris Lewis, Jensen’s storyboards for The Nutty Professor are graphic interpretations of the script, suggesting elements of performance, staging, lighting effects, camera placement, and cutting continuity. The 11 storyboard sequences on display anticipate the look and experience of the motion picture, skillfully expressing Lewis’s intentions as both director and performer. In Lewis’s adaptation of the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde story, his dual performance as the self-effacing Professor Kelp and the narcissistic Buddy Love represents different sides of the Lewis persona, while the on-screen students and nightclub audiences who witness his character’s behavior represent the critical gaze of the moviegoing public. The experience of being seen, a central theme in The Nutty Professor, is highlighted on a series of monitors, which complement the storyboards with video excerpts from the film. Seen together, The Unknown Jerry film series and the Looking at Jerry Lewis gallery presentation demonstrate Lewis’s dynamic accomplishments both on screen and behind the camera.
See below for the screening schedule for full program details and guest appearance dates.
Public Information:
The Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53 Street, New York, NY 10019, (212) 708-9400, moma.org. Hours: Saturday–Thursday, 10:30 a.m.–5:30 p.m., Friday, 10:30 a.m.–8:00 p.m. Museum admission: $25 adults; $18 seniors, 65 years and over with I.D.; $14 full-time students with current ID; free, members and children 16 and under (includes admittance to Museum galleries and film programs). Free admission during Uniqlo Free Friday Nights: Fridays, 4:00–8:00 p.m. No service charge for tickets ordered on moma.org. Tickets purchased online can be printed out and presented at the Museum without waiting in line (includes admittance to Museum galleries and film programs). Film and after-hours program admission: $12
The Nutty Professor. 1963. USA. Directed by Jerry Lewis. Screenplay by Lewis, Bill
Richmond. With Lewis, Stella Stevens, Kathleen Freeman. 107 min.
Lewis’s growing fascination with multiplied selves and divided personalities led to his
masterpiece, a lacerating, self-reflexive variation on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Socially inept
chemistry professor Julius Kelp discovers a formula that transforms him into the oleaginous
lounge singer Buddy Love, a rich metaphor that Lewis explores with insight and unflinching
self-consciousness.
Tuesday, October 2, 7:00 pm
Wednesday, October 10, 7:00 pm
The Ladies Man. 1961. USA. Directed by Jerry Lewis. Screenplay by Lewis, Bill Richmond.
With Lewis, Helen Traubel, Pat Stanley, Kathleen Freeman. 95 min.
In his second film as a director, Lewis is already demonstrating the sense of formal invention
that would dazzle the French New Wave directors—a sense that is even more pronounced in
this rare preview cut of the film, which includes an extended romantic subplot that builds to a
breathtaking camera movement.
Wednesday, October 3, 4:00 pm
Tuesday, October 9, 7:00 pm
The Errand Boy. 1961. USA. Directed by Jerry Lewis. Screenplay by Lewis, Bill Richmond.
With Lewis, Brian Donlevy, Renée Taylor. 92 min.
Executed in the loose, gag-oriented style of The Bellboy, The Errand Boy essentially treats the
Paramount lot as one big prop, offering Lewis’s character—a paperhanger hired as a frontoffice
spy—to interact with all the assorted paraphernalia of filmmaking. Some of Lewis’s
funniest moments are here, including a classic scene in a crowded elevator and a haunting
sequence involving a pair of puppets without puppetmasters.
Wednesday, October 3, 7:00 pm
Monday, October 8, 7:00 pm
Come Back Little Shiksa. 1953. USA. Directed by Jerry Lewis. With Dean Martin, Patti Lewis,
Janet Leigh, Tony Curtis, Danny Arnold, Jerry Lewis. DCP. 39 min. [Total program: 60 min.]
In this inversion of Come Back Little Sheba, Burt Lancaster’s 1953 drama about a recovering
alcoholic, Dean Martin stars as a hard-drinking surgeon who must constantly face the
temptation of sobriety. With the support of his loving wife, played by Patti Lewis, Dean is able
to fight his urge to live the teetotal life. Janet Leigh plays the sex-starved boarder who lusts
after neighbor Tony Curtis. Shown with footage from the film’s premiere at Jerry and Patti’s
home in Pacific Palisades.
Friday, October 5, 4:00 pm (Introduced by Chris Lewis and Rob Stone)
Sunday, October 7, 5:00 pm
The Re-Inforcer. 1951. Directed by Jerry Lewis. With Tony Curtis, Janet Leigh, Mona
Freeman, Dean Martin, Danny Arnold, Shelley Winters, Tommy Farrell. DCP. 45 min. [Total
program: 60 min.]
Dean Martin is all mobbed up as pinstriped gangster Joe Lasagna in this reimagining of the
1951 Humphrey Bogart starrer The Enforcer. Joe’s reign is threatened by up-and-coming hoodlum Baffo (Tony Curtis), who eventually takes over Joe’s gang, his singing duties, and his
cozy relationship with FBI informant Danny Arnold. Mona Freeman, the recently rediscovered
star of That Brennan Girl, contributes a fetching performance as a mob wife. Shown with
footage of the film’s Pacific Palisades premiere.
Friday,October 5, 7:00 pm (Introduced by Chris Lewis and Rob Stone)
Tuesday, October 9, 4:00 pm
Fairfax Avenue. 1951. Directed by Jerry Lewis. With Janet Leigh, Tony Curtis, Dino Crocetti,
Patti Lewis. DCP. 30 min. [Total program; 60 min.]
Janet Leigh commands her close-up as the faux Norma Desmond character in what an
elaborate title sequence identifies as “the Jewish Sunset Boulevard.” Tony Curtis finds his
inner boy-toy as the Desmond character’s companion and ostensible screenwriter, while
Dean Martin defies typecasting as the Italian tenor who croons the title song. Shown with the
10-minute Eastman Color short An Eye for an Eye, with Leigh and Curtis as a couple dealing
with suspicions of infidelity, as well as a selection of Fairfax Avenue outtakes.
Saturday, October 6, 1:00 pm (introduced by Chris Lewis and Rob Stone)
Monday, October 8, 4:00 pm
The Making of Gar-Ron Productions. 1951–56. Directed by Jerry Lewis. With Jerry Lewis,
Dean Martin, Tony Curtis, Janet Leigh, Danny Arnold. 60 min.
At heart, Gar-Ron Productions was just a bunch of friends goofing around on weekends, but
the movies they made offer a fascinating glimpse of Hollywood at play during the studio era,
as well as a proving ground for Jerry Lewis’s burgeoning directorial skills. This program
includes outtakes, field trips, and incomplete films from the Gar-Ron gang, concluding with
the complete short film A Spot in the Shade (12 min.), featuring Tony Curtis, Janet Leigh, Patti
Lewis, and Mona Freeman.
Saturday, October 6, 4:00 pm
Wednesday, October 10, 4:00 pm.
Gar-Ron Productions Screen Tests. 1951–56. Directed by Jerry Lewis. With Jerry Lewis,
Milton Berle, Jan Murray, Jack Carter, Sophie Tucker.
Anticipating Andy Warhol by a decade, Jerry Lewis would often subject visitors to his Pacific
Palisades home to “screen tests,” a ritual more in the line of a somewhat sadistic party game
than test footage for any actual films. As with most everything Jerry shot away from the
Paramount Studios in the 1950s, these screen tests were made under the Gar-Ron
Productions umbrella. Also on the program is Jerry’s very first actual screen test, for the 1949
My Friend Irma, as well as some tests made during the 1960s at Paramount Studios when
Jerry was at the height of his solo film career. The program concludes with the short
Nightmare (10 min.), with Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh.
Saturday, October 6, 7:00 pm
Thursday, October 11, 7:00 pm
The Bellboy. 1960. USA. Written and directed by Jerry Lewis. With Lewis, Alex Gerry, Bob
Clayton. 72 min.
The link between the home movies and Lewis’s professional career as a director was this, his
first feature, made on the cuff while Lewis was performing at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami
Beach. The Fontainebleau’s spectacular midcentury modern décor provides a pristine
backdrop for a series of silent-movie sight gags and audaciously self-referential moments (as
when the movie star Jerry Lewis, played by one “Joe Levitch,” arrives for a gig).
Sunday, October 7, 2:00 pm
Thursday, October 11, 4:00 pm
