Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River

Jerry Lewis as a professional schemer who marries a lovely Brit and moves to Swinging London, but neglects his new spouse by always putting his eccentric clients first. She sues for divorce and gets custody of their manor--but while she's away, Lewis sneaks back in and turns the property into a restaurant/discotheque with a Chinese theme. Lewis, working solely as an actor-for-hire, is more appealing when he's restrained, but at the same time was getting too old for juvenile antics like this. Screenwriter Max Wilk adapted his own novel (!), but doesn't have much of a sense of humor. His ingredients here include loud divorce arguments, the mumps, blackmail, suspected infidelity...and Lewis doing a really awful Chinese imitation with his two front teeth stuck out. *1/2 from ****

Jerry Lewis plays George Lester, an American man who lives in Britain.He wants to become rich, quick and he comes up with schemes.He marries a pretty Englisg woman Pamela (Jacqueline Thomas), who then wants a divorce because she's tired of being dragged around the world.George wants her back.Jerry Paris is the director of Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River (1967).It's main star, comedian Jerry Lewis turns 83 today.It's always a joy to watch the master at work.I found the VHS last year and just watched it.While this isn't the best movie Jerry has been in, it still has some good moments.It's quite funny when Jerry goes to Dudley's office wearing a moustache and trying to take pictures with that mini camera.All Jerry Lewis fans should see this.

I'm a big fan of Jerry Lewis. It seems people either love him or hate him. They either get the humor or they don't. I have every movie he's made, except for this one. And after seeing it again today, I realize why.

First of all he's completely miscast. It was mistake to cast him in this role and an even bigger mistake for him to take the job. This obviously wasn't a role for a comedian because the film isn't a comedy. Is divorce funny? When is the last time you heard someone say, "My divorce was hilarious."?

Then there's Jacqueline Pearce, who plays the role of his wife, or ex-wife. I'm amazed at all the positive talk about her. She can't act, looks like she cut her hair herself while wearing a blindfold and is totally annoying.

And if the storyline wasn't bad enough, throw in a girls scout troop, with mumps headed up by the stuffy Patricia "voice like the French Chef" Routledge. Seriously? Why? It had nothing to do with the plot.

And as I stare at the screen in disbelief that this is a Jerry Lewis movie, it all makes sense when you realize it was directed by Jerry Paris - the untalented hack that played Dick Van Dyke's neighbor.

Odd that the video cover says "The original king of comedy at his outrageous best!" Yes, he's one of the original kings of comedy, but in this film he's never outrageous and at his all time worst.

I'm well known--well, or at least I'd like to be well known--for arguing that it's a mistake to identify genres with emotional reactions in viewers. For example, I think it's wrong to conflate "horror" and "scary movie", where "scary" is intended to describe the emotional reaction the film is supposed to cause in the viewer. "Horror" instead should describe the content of the film and (maybe) the way that content is handled. Likewise with comedy, although the identification of modern comedies and laughter is probably the most difficult case to disentangle. (If we use the traditional sense of "comedy", the disentangling is much easier.)

I bring all of this up not to bore you, or even to flabbergast you with how pretentious, pompous, or pseudo-intellectual I sound (or whatever other epithet you'd like to apply). I bring it up merely to say that the problems I had with Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River aren't solely based on it being a largely unfunny comedy--which it is. There are unfunny comedies that can be good films. Just like horror films need not be scary to be good, comedies need not be funny, or need not primarily aim for that. But Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River has a host of other problems that make it not succeed above a "D" level, or a 6.

It's difficult, at least this far removed in time, to say what exactly director Jerry Paris was shooting for here. The film is about George Lester (Jerry Lewis). The beginning has a quickly progressing sequence where we see George go from being a kid to meeting his wife and already having problems with her as he takes her on extreme business trips (often in hostile environments) across the globe. This all happens in maybe four or five minutes. The common theme throughout these all-too-quick scenes, and the gist of the film, is that George is a cross between a misguided dreamer/entrepreneur and a con-man/shyster.

Unfortunately, this opening sequence was maybe the best thing about Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River. There was a good story in following George as he grew up, met his wife and went on crazy business trips. Much of the opening is funny. This material should have been stretched into feature length.

But instead, Paris and writer Max Wilk, adapting his own novel for the screenplay, give us a very convoluted story set while George and his wife, Pamela (Jacqueline Pearce), are getting divorced. The film ends up being about a confused scheme to bilk some oil sheiks out of £50,000 and at the same time, get George's wife back into his arms. The premise isn't bad, but the script and the direction are a mess.

It doesn't help that Paris seems like he tried to reel Lewis in a bit--or maybe Lewis was trying to appear relatively more serious and sophisticated. Whatever the cause, the result is that Lewis is a bit boring and uncharismatic, and when he tries to do more manic comic bits, they tend to fall flat. Constructing the plot so that Lewis is stuck at home, mostly not interacting with others, wasn't a great idea either. It's like a literal representation of "phoning in" a performance. At the same time, it's clear that Paris was often going for a "madcap comedy", but he achieves neither a convincing "madcap" feeling nor many laughs.

Pearce's performance is decent, but she seems to be in the wrong film. Her tone doesn't match anyone else's. There are also two very good supporting actors, Terry-Thomas, as fellow shyster H. William Homer, and Patricia Routledge, as Lucille Beatty. Both do the best job they can given the script and direction problems, but neither quite manage to take off--either they just can't muster the momentum to take over as they need to, or they weren't allowed to.

It's not that the film is a complete disaster. There are occasional sections that work, such as the beginning, mentioned above. There are also occasional sections that are funny, such as the idea of turning the house into a restaurant/disco, and the scenes featuring Fed Davies (Bernard Cribbins) in his second job (although the fact that he had two jobs wasn't explained very well). More often, there are scenes that might make you smile. But overall, the film is quite a trainwreck, because of the bad story/script and direction, despite the fact that the ending is satisfying, and the actors keep doing their best to surmount the difficulties.

Also on the positive side, the cinematography is crisp ad colorful if not particularly innovative, and the sets/locations are occasionally attractive. But this is not nearly enough to recommend the film.

I don't think I've seen any of Paris' other films yet, although I've seen a lot of his television work, which was often quite funny--he's directed episodes of "The Dick Van Dyke Show" (1961), "Mary Tyler Moore" (1970), and "The Odd Couple" (1970), for instance--all excellent shows. Maybe his talent was more suited for filling in 22 minutes of a comedy template than the more free-form structure of a feature film.

Oh dear oh dear oh dear. I can't make my mind up if this is one of those so bad it's good films or if it's just awful. The only stand out thing for me is it is the first film appearance of the fantastic British actress Patricia Routledge as a dotty girl guide leader. Other than that, it's one of those films you either give up on half way through because it's so terrible or stick with it because it's a bit bonkers.