The Ladies Man

Going through some of my DVD box sets, I decided to crack open the Jerry Lewis set again since I had six or seven movies I hadn't blogged about before. This time, I selected The Ladies Man.

Lewis plays Herbert Heebert, who at the start of the movie is graduating from college. He's got a girlfriend he's about to propose to. Except that when he goes up to pop the question, he finds that she's with another man. This of course leaves Herbert depresed and not sure what to do with his life, so he thinks about leaving town.

There's a big mansion that has a help wanted sign up, stating that the job has to go to a bachelor. Herbert having been jilted and thus taking a break from women for a while, and in need of a job, inquires about it with Katie (Kathleen Freeman), the maid of the house. She, and the house's owner, former opera singer Miss Wellenmellon (Helen Traubel) are thrilled, giving Herbert a room to spend the night before he starts work in the morning.

It's only in the morning that Herbert discovers the house has dozens, if not hundreds, of young women residents, all living dormitory-style as they're looking to crak the entertainment industry in one form or another. And they all seem to be somewhat man-hungry, too.

That's the basic premise for the plot, but in reality it's more like The Bellboy or The Errand Boy before it in that it's really an excuse for a whole bunch of not-closely-related sketches, which are hit-or-miss. There are also sketches which serve the purpose of bringing in a star for a cameo, most notably George Raft.

For me, the "plot" and many of the sketches in The Ladies Man didn't really work. But it did show that Lewis already had quite a bit of technical talent as a director. The mansion itself is a character, as it appears on many occasions as though it could have been inspired by the set of Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window, with long shots showing lots of the rooms on all three floors and the action being very carefully choreographed through the rooms and up and down those staircases. It's just a shame Lewis couldn't be directing other actors and/or off of somebody else's script.

Still, The Ladies Man is an interesting miss, and definitely worth the price considering how many movies the box set has.