verbusen Review of Martin and Lewis

Martin and Lewis (2002 TV Movie)

Good Film, except the premise is Fiction

[6/10 · 16 July 2017]

Full disclosure, I am not an Italian-American (although I did grow up in Little Italy New York City), nor am I a Jewish-American (although I tried to marry a Jewish-American woman once when very young and learned a lot of the religion in the process). So, with that in mind I am reviewing this as an Irish-American from New York City (Greenwich Village in the 1960's to 70's) who grew up there until age 17 and went on to greener pastures, now in Florida. I grew up a HUGE Jerry Lewis fan because they would play his films a LOT in New York City TV, even his solo efforts like; "Hook, Line, and Sinker", but especially films like, "The Bellboy", "The Nutty Professor" and "Cinderfella". I still like to watch Jerry but honestly have not watched 1/8 as much of him as I have watched Dean Martin the last 30 years. I love Dean. I worked overseas for a decade and would play Dean's Christmas album (on CD) to cheer me up. I really enjoyed "Ada" and was really underwhelmed by "The Young Lions", so I am objective about Dean but overall he is the boss for a fun time, good performance for me. (BTW, how did they both get out of the draft in WW2? Dean was too old? What about Jerry? Too frail? Not addressed in the film about their lives). When Dean lost his son in the military it broke my heart so yeah, I loved Dean, as a fan. When Jerry tried his comebacks on Broadway I would always cheer him on also, and was saddened when he gained weight and so happy that he overcame the illness that the drugs he was taking caused that gain. With that said, as a younger baby boomer, this is my recollection of events in the gossip circles. It was not a good split, and they were not friends for life as the movie implies. And Jerry was the D-bag, not Dean. Hey we all know about Jerry if anyone has followed their lives, the guy is a serious egomaniac; ask his son, Gary. I'm OK with the film up to the point that it really over implies this adultery on Dean's part. So I looked up where the script came from, and it's from Groucho Marx's son, Arthur Marx. Marx also did other "tell all" fiction on famous Hollywood types like Bob Hope (which has the same story-line of an adulterer out for only himself). I question, since Lewis was involved with this production whether ethnicity (Jewish-American) was a factor in the script? Fun to watch though and the eventual split with Dean and his wife is the real scene to watch for (made me cry), the rest of the film is anticlimactic. 6 of 10, not higher because it's fiction in a too biased view of Dean. PS, when the film does not do things as they occurred in real life; like Dean's marriage to Jeanne was in 1949 not later on after they had made many films in Hollywood together, that is FICTION.