FREE: VHS JERRY LEWIS "THE ERRAND BOY"1988 Obscure VERY VERY GOOD!.

The listing, VHS JERRY LEWIS "THE ERRAND BOY"1988 Obscure VERY VERY GOOD!. has ended.

A knowing and multi-faceted critique of big-studio filmmaking, 'The Errand Boy' is one of Lewis's very best films (it is his third; his fifth, 'The Patsy', can be considered as a sort of sequel). Morty S. Tashman is hired as a spy by the moguls of a major studio because they want to learn how their money is spent. He proves to be a destructive force: just as the prologue had exposed the trickeries and illusions on which Hollywood films thrive, the following 80 minutes show Morty disrupting a few shootings, a voice-recording session, the work of script-girls, and more. He stands as the innocence the producers have lost in trying to make money and please everybody; it is quite easy to read him as 'Lewis the artist'. By the end of the film, Morty has become a Jerry Lewis-like star, proudly saluting his new fans behind dark glasses; he thus seems to have made a place for himself in a world he had previously reduced to pieces. This dichotomy is similar to the one of 'The Bellboy', Lewis's first film as a director: in that movie, the timid, free and inventive bellboy was contrasted with the swagger, aggressiveness and confinement of Lewis playing himself. The brilliant and cyclical final sequence offers an interesting alternative: by having Morty meet a clumsy boy resembling his 'pre-star' self, Lewis assures us that even if some can't escape the studio's mercantile traps, there will always be innocence to be spread in these calculations and falsities. Intelligent, and very funny.
Very nice condition, Postage $2.80