The Nutty Professor (1963)

What’s the Story?

At a California college, nerdy chemistry professor Julius Kelp (Jerry Lewis) is a genius at brewing dangerous potions but a clumsy weakling in everything else. After being bullied by one of his own students, Kelp wonders if he can secretly formulate a chemical concoction that will grant him strength and assertiveness. Result: bucktoothed, bespectacled Kelp temporarily changes, unrecognizably, into a clubgoing hipster ladies' man, piano-playing crooner, and all-around alpha male who renames himself "Buddy Love." But while hugely popular, this new personality is also sullen, rude, egocentric, hard-drinking, and manipulative. Buddy begins a pushy courtship of a pretty co-ed Stella (Stella Stevens) in Kelp's class, who is both attracted and repulsed by this sharp-dressed, charismatic scoundrel.

Is It Any Good?

Even critics who hate Jerry Lewis movies praise THE NUTTY PROFESSOR, if grudgingly, as a high point for the director-star. In other knockabout comedies, done both with and without comedy partner Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis made a hit with audiences -- especially kids -- by (mis)behaving like a grating, hyperactive child. This film, while delivering a handful of broad slapstick bits, is less frenetic and more thoughtful and character-based, with some surprisingly nuanced psychological insights (compare-contrast with the Eddie Murphy version) as cartoonish Kelp experiences nightlife as the impossibly "cool" and abrasive Buddy Love.

Some commentators interpreted Buddy Love as a venomous caricature of Dean Martin, but it seems more like an on-target spoof on the whole early-60s male ideal of the hip dude, right outta the Rat Pack and the Playboy Mansion. Indeed, close your eyes while Buddy bosses women and insults men and you can imagine Frank Sinatra smugly delivering those same lines (and songs). In 2008 Jerry Lewis lent his voice and characters to a more kid-targeted, computer-generated cartoon sequel-update on DVD, also called The Nutty Professor (rated PG).