Cracking Up

Cracking Up (1983) starring Jerry Lewis

Editorial review of Cracking Up courtesy of Amazon.com

  Cracking Up is a crazy quilt of sight gags, one-liners, caricatures, slapstick and quirky vocal mannerisms. In short, it’s marvelous mayhem of the kind which has gained Jerry Lewis admirers the world over. Lewis plays a hapless misfit who seeks psychiatric help after bumbling a suicide attempt. His shrink sessions reveal a flashback history about a klutzy childhood and a family history of (what else?) ineptitude, affording Lewis to play a smorgasbord of roles, including a 6-year-old boy, a 15th-century coachman, a good-ol’-boy sheriff and a bearded guru. The wackiness soars to new heights when our nutcase patient takes a transcontinental flight on the cheapest airline he can find. But there’s no scrimping on the laughter. Cracking Up is zany proof that nobody does funnymaking filmmaking better than Lewis.

 Trivia for Cracking Up

• The opening credits jokingly state that the picture’s main title song is sung by Marcel Marceau.
• After principal photography on this film was completed, Jerry Lewis went to have triple bypass heart surgery at the Desert Springs Hospital in Las Vegas.
• The picture was released in the USA on a double bill with The King of Comedy.
• Jerry Lewis plays ten different roles in this movie. These included Warren Nefron, Dr. Perks, a gangster, a six year old, Speed Armeter and an elderly guru. Co-writer Bill Richmond played five different parts.
• This film reunited Jerry Lewis and Sammy Davis Jr though this is the first time they’ve shared a scene together. Previously, they’ve worked together in One More Time, a movie which Lewis directed in 1970
• As Ms. Sultry, Milton Berle appears in drag in this movie.