The Delicate Delincuent
1957
Written and Directed by Don McGuire
Starring and produced by Jerry Lewis
I love classic movies and I loved Jerry Lewis as a kid. For some reason I decided to go back to this underrated Jerry Lewis movie some 40 years after seeing it for the first time and I was really surprised by what I found!
From the start I saw it as an answer to the more dark tinged The Wild One or Rebel Without A Cause by taking another, less dramatic and more hopeful twist at what seemed to be a concern at the time: marginalized youngsters. In a sense I think that Jerry Lewis might be to Marlon Brando what Buddy Holly was to Elvis Presley: the nerd-y, clumsy side of the same rock and roll / juvenile delincuency story (at least in the context of these two movies).
The first part of the movie is interesting in that it brings up social commentary and subtleties that are not far from the ones of today's. There is a policeman who advocates social support for the youth instead of discipline and punishment, which seems to be an advanced vision for the historical context; at the same time, the same police officer claims in a spiteful tone "I am not going to work with a dame!" at one point, which in my opinion signals another social concern and by the way gives the character a more rounded dimension (we as humans are all full of contradictions in the end). Jerry Lewis himself doesn't really come across as dumb as I remembered (he's still funny as hell though!) and in some scenes his character acts like an assertive little man.
In the second part, in my opinion, and I don't mean to spoil it, the script goes a bit sideways, but it is justified by an awesome dialogue between Jerry Lewis and the antagonist character.
In the end it is a really entertaining movie and one that doesn't really feel completely anachronistic. An 8/10 for me.
I love classic movies and I loved Jerry Lewis as a kid. For some reason I decided to go back to this underrated Jerry Lewis movie some 40 years after seeing it for the first time and I was really surprised by what I found!
From the start I saw it as an answer to the more dark tinged The Wild One or Rebel Without A Cause by taking another, less dramatic and more hopeful twist at what seemed to be a concern at the time: marginalized youngsters. In a sense I think that Jerry Lewis might be to Marlon Brando what Buddy Holly was to Elvis Presley: the nerd-y, clumsy side of the same rock and roll / juvenile delincuency story (at least in the context of these two movies).
The first part of the movie is interesting in that it brings up social commentary and subtleties that are not far from the ones of today's. There is a policeman who advocates social support for the youth instead of discipline and punishment, which seems to be an advanced vision for the historical context; at the same time, the same police officer claims in a spiteful tone "I am not going to work with a dame!" at one point, which in my opinion signals another social concern and by the way gives the character a more rounded dimension (we as humans are all full of contradictions in the end). Jerry Lewis himself doesn't really come across as dumb as I remembered (he's still funny as hell though!) and in some scenes his character acts like an assertive little man.
In the second part, in my opinion, and I don't mean to spoil it, the script goes a bit sideways, but it is justified by an awesome dialogue between Jerry Lewis and the antagonist character.
In the end it is a really entertaining movie and one that doesn't really feel completely anachronistic. An 8/10 for me.