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Dedicated to "all the refugees from television throughout the world." An easy racket, the beleaguered crooner (Dean Martin) with copies of every ticket for a raffle, the fly in the ointment is the movie-mad lad from Robespierre Delicatessen (Jerry Lewis). The shared prize is a red convertible, the ride from coast to coast is guarded by a Great Dane named Mr. Bascom so that the sharpie can't ditch the energumen along the way. Off to Tinseltown, "land of stardust and land of glamor, Vistavision and Cinerama," where the dream is to be neighbors with Anita Ekberg. ("We can share the same incinerator!") On the road with Frank Tashlin, a landscape of leggy pinups and guffawing salesmen and pistol-wielding grannies. It Happened One Night paves the way, the redheaded chorus girl in the crumbling jalopy (Pat Crowley) is remembered by Melville in Magnet of Doom. Portrait of the cinephile, just a nice young spaz who sniffs car seats and tastes dog food, and who needs only a working knowledge of Blood and Sand to confront an angry bull. Tribute to "the wild and woolly West," taking note of Oklahoma buttermilk and New Mexico uranium and culminating in the ecstatic image of the 20-gallon stetson ejaculating amid Texas oil rigs. "Nice music. Wrong lyrics." It all leads to Grauman's Chinese Theater, with a Las Vegas pit stop for a foretaste of Rain Man and an echoing rhyme between the Grand Canyon and the Hollywood Bowl. "A riot of poetic fancies," says Godard in his Cahiers review, centering on Lewis' face, "where the height of artifice blends at times with the nobility of true documentary." With Maxie Rosenbloom, Richard Karlan, Kathryn Card, Willard Waterman, and Frank Wilcox.
--- Fernando F. Croce |