The Nutty Professor (1963)
Directed by Jerry Lewis

Film Review

By far the best of Jerry Lewis's film comedies after his split with Dean Martin in the early 1960s, The Nutty Professor shows the legendary goofy comedian at his most inventive and manically exuberant, as both a director and performer.  An imaginative (and frequently hilarious) reworking of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic short story The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, the film is boldly evocative of the era in which it was made (through its toe-tapping songs and almost psychedelically garish sets).  It also delivers a cogent moral, namely that character is what matters most, not external appearances.  It is the kind of harmless but enjoyably daft comedy that never goes out of fashion.

Jerry Lewis appears to have most fun playing a grotesquely inept science professor (the film might have worked better if the character wasn't quite so exaggerated) but he is funnier in the guise of his strutting peacock alter ego, Buddy Love.  Lewis later denied that the latter was based on Dean Martin, although the uncanny resemblance between his former team mate and the smooth, swaggering hipster is inescapable.  Forget the crass 1996 Eddie Murphy remake; the original Nutty Professor is superior in just about every respect, unless you have a pathological phobia of Jerry Lewis.  Lewis saves the best gag right to the end - if this doesn't get you to laugh yourself out of your seat, nothing will.

Film Synopsis

Professor Julius Kelp is an accident-prone and socially inept chemistry professor at an American university.  When he is picked upon by one of his more muscular students, Kelp makes up his mind to build himself up, but his visits to the gym prove disastrous.  He then has the idea of inventing a formula that will change his appearance.  Kelp's experiment proves a success - he is no longer the buck-toothed weirdo but a self-confident, strutting swinger, with a personality that no one (male or female) can resist.  In his new persona, which he christens Buddy Love, Kelp makes an easy conquest of Stella Purdy, one of his students - she cannot help herself falling in love with him, even though she finds him rude and abrasive.  Unfortunately, the formula only lasts for a limited time, which causes no end of embarrassment for Kelp as he is forced to make a hasty departure at the most awkward moments...