Disorderly Orderly, The (1965)

Jerry Lewis stars as Jerome Littlefield, an orderly in a private hospital who is always trying too hard – with the obvious comic results. Somehow he always manages to do things wrong and keeps his job only through the constant intervention of the head doctor.

He is consoled after his various goofs by pretty nurse Julie Blair (Karen Sharpe), but the situation is complicated by a patient – Susan Andrews (Susan Oliver) – who has suicidal tendencies causing her to believe that nobody loves her.

Jerry has worshipped Susan from afar since their high school days, and his kind attention finally cures her. But when Susan asks Jerome to marry her, he realises that he is in love not with her but with Julie.

Lewis’s comic genius is very much a matter of taste. In France he’s virtually canonised; elsewhere, though, he has admirers and detractors in equal parts. This – his 31st film – is exactly the type of movie that tends to infuriate both parties.

It’s very, very funny, with a wonderful climactic chase and a particularly hysterical Lewis moment where Jerry has sympathy pains with the choleric Mrs Fuzzibee (Alice Pearce who played Lucy Shmeeler in On the Town).

However, the film also contains some of the most melancholy and cloying sentiment in the whole of Lewis’s oeuvre.

For once, director Frank Tashlin seems unable to control Jerry, which is not necessarily a bad thing, and the sight gags are tremendous.

Jerome Littlefield
Jerry Lewis
Dr Jean Howard
Glenda Farrell
Mr Tuffington
Everett Sloane
Mrs Fuzzibee
Alice Pearce
Julie Blair
Karen Sharpe
Maggie Higgins
Kathleen Freeman
Dr Davenport
Del Moore
Susan Andrews
Susan Oliver
Fat Jack
Jack E Leonard
Mr Courtney
Richard Deacon
Mrs Welles
Herbie Faye
Mr McCaby
Frank Scannell

Director
Frank Tashlin

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