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The precursor is Sturges' The Sin of Harold Diddlebock, footage from the past gives way to the sagging present. The collapsed big top is raised behind the credits, and there's Jerry Lewis in greasepaint with bottomless valise before a sparse audience. End of the circus, elusiveness of a steady job. "They must need a clown somewhere." "Sure they do, but who wants to get into politics?" Overflowing tank and drenched engine and exploding tire, just his first day at the gas station. Off-screen shattering at the glass factory, disembodied gams at the nightclub, a world of uncanny spaces. "Direction and purpose" are the goals, the post office accommodates him with short pants and donuts. "In no mood for buck-passing," Lewis contemplates persona and cinema on the cusp of the decade. (The dilemma is Frost's, "what to make of a diminished thing.") Old roles avail him no more, thus a reprise of his racist shtick, buck teeth and thick glasses and all, nearly gets him killed. The center of attention in his Saturday Night Fever fantasy, in reality not even a reflection on the disco ball. The poignant nudity of the mise en scène, with its Florida suburbs and product placement, allows for a most astringent surrealism—a wall mirror turns out to be a porthole that floods the screen, an argument with an answering machine ends with a strangulated telephone cord. Ambiguity of the jester's makeup (cf. The Family Jewels), the excruciating need to be loved that leads Lewis to hit on himself while in drag. The costume he can't get away from violates "the sanctity of the mail," back on the road, Clown College or bust. Eastwood's concurrent Bronco Billy tackles the allegory its own way. With Susan Oliver, Roger C. Carmel, Deanna Lund, Harold J. Stone, Steve Franken, and Buddy Lester.
--- Fernando F. Croce |