HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JER

“I’m an American icon”

- Jerry Lewis in a humble moment

With an ear-piercing shriek that would become one of his trademarks, Joey Levitch – aka Jerry Lewis – entered the world this day in 1925, after putting his mother through 3 days of labor pains.

His mom and dad were vaudeville performers, and he pretty much had show biz in his blood. He started his career lip-synching to records on-stage – not the most auspicious of beginnings. But his career took off like a rocket when he met up with a struggling Italian crooner named Dean Martin, fresh from a nose job in Toledo. The two teamed up on stage, Martin trying to sing and the monkeylike Lewis causing endless mayhem. The chemistry was immediate and highly combustible. “We had lightning in a bottle,” Lewis said. Martin & Lewis became the biggest sensation of the 50s . . . bigger than Ike, bigger than Sputnik, bigger even than Elvis among the young.

The team signed with Paramount and Hal Wallis for a series of successful films – some of them actually entertaining: ‘Hollywood Or Bust’ (1956), ‘The Stooge’ (1953), and ‘Artists and Models’ (1955). But even the best Martin & Lewis films never captured their manic, anything-goes onstage anarchy. (To see them in their full antic glory, seek out the old Colgate Comedy Hour TV shows, which they hosted during the 50s.)

When the team broke up acrimoniously in 1957 (“You can talk about love all you like, pallie,” Martin told his ex-partner. “To me you’re nothing but a fucking dollar sign.”), Jerry went it alone, taking his trademark ‘idiot’ character into increasingly surreal scenarios and surroundings. He began directing himself, impressively so, in ‘The Bellboy’ (1960) and ‘The Errand Boy’ (1961). But his most perfectly realized role – and his greatest achievement as an actor and director – is the brilliantly Freudian ‘The Nutty Professor’ (1963).

Jerry plays mousy professor Dr. Julius Kelp, a nerdy, bespectacled, buck-toothed college science teacher, who secretly longs to be a swinging he-man. In a witty spin on Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, Kelp concocts a potion that transforms him into obnoxious lounge lizard Buddy Love. Critics at the time thought the character of Buddy Love was a poison-pen valentine to ex-partner Dean; in retrospect, the character proves a frighteningly accurate of the real-life Jerry to come.

Lewis gives a terrific dual performance and fills the screen with some hilariously surreal sight gags. He never made a better movie.

Click here to enjoy a clip . . . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7h-Igawp5Y

DOG (AND CAT) DAY AFTERNOON IN AUSTIN

Last Thursday, March 11^th, was a good day for friends of abandoned and homeless animals here in Austin, Texas. In a unanimous vote, the City Council passed a long-lobbied-for resolution to make Austin a No-Kill City within the next two years. Many animal advocates pushed long and hard for the legislation, and were on hand at the meeting to both celebrate and make their voices heard. I couldn’t attend the meeting – I was laid up after some minor surgery – but my good friend (and animal advocate) Deborah Goldstein was there, her mini web-cam in hand, to record the event. She has a popular blog called ‘Blogging With Buddy’ (named for her 3-legged rescue dog, Buddy) . . . here’s a link to the site and a short video she shot of the occasion.

Check it out by clicking here . . . http://www.bloggingwithbuddy.blogspot.com/

Animal movies are a popular genre for a very simple reason: People love animals. From Toto in ‘The Wizard of Oz’ to the hordes of four-legged scene-stealers in ‘Hotel For Dogs’, from ‘Benji’ to ‘Babe’, from ‘Old Yeller’ to ‘Marley & Me’, the list of popular critter flix is unending.

But audiences have a soft spot in their hearts for abandoned animals, especially ones who overcome great odds to not only survive, but thrive. In honor of Austin’s momentous resolution, today’s ‘Movie A Day’ celebrates scrappy four-legged survivors with a Disney film from the early 60s that’s been sadly forgotten – ‘The Three Lives of Thomasina’. A pre-‘Prisoner’ Patrick McGoohan takes a rare starring role as a bitter and taciturn English veterinarian whose sad duty it is to put down his daughter’s adored feline companion, Thomasina. But Thomasina, like many cats, has more lives than one, and the story of her tenaciousness and instinct for survival will appeal to animal lovers everywhere. For some reason, this film has pretty much disappeared, although it was a money-maker during its initial release. An intriguing mix of drama, coming-of-age and animal lore, ‘The Three Lives of Thomasina’ also boasts the relatively rare claim of being one of the very few movies to be narrated by a cat.