Let’s start with a basic truth: The Family Jewels is not peak Jerry Lewis, it’s Jerry Lewis on a sugar high, locked in a room with a costume rack and an existential need to prove that he can play every character in the movie. And he does. Seven times. If you’ve ever asked yourself, “What if The Nutty Professor went on a weird, PG-rated vision quest through the American male archetype?”—well, welcome aboard. It’s a film that’s both admirably ambitious and maddeningly uneven, a cinematic sandbox for Lewis’s comedic impulses, and a gentle exercise in child-led emotional logic. Also, there’s a gangster. And a clown. And a Ford Tri-Motor aircraft that, miraculously, did not unionize and fly off in protest.
A Swiss Army Lewis
Filmed over the course of just under three months in 1965 and released by Paramount that July, The Family Jewels is a showcase for Jerry Lewis in full auteur mode: co-writer, director, producer, and every uncle your therapist warned you about. This film came hot on the heels of his earlier directorial successes, especially The Nutty Professor, and it’s hard not to see this as a spiritual sequel, only this time, the Jekyll-and-Hyde concept has exploded into a hydra of caricatures.
Jerry Lewis was clearly riding high on creative control and perhaps a bit too much caffeine. The plot, such as it is, functions more like an episodic excuse to trot out one exaggerated character after another. This isn’t so much a movie as it is a collection of sketches loosely connected by the need to find a suitable guardian for a precocious heiress. The screenplay serves more as a trampoline for Lewis’s brand of physical and vocal comedy than a coherent narrative, but if you’re here for cohesion, you’re in the wrong circus tent.
One Man, Many Hats (Literally)
The heart of the film, oddly enough, is not Jerry Lewis times seven, but Donna Butterworth, a child actor who somehow manages to ground the film with grace, sincerity, and a devastatingly good deadpan. As Donna Peyton, a ten-year-old heiress tasked with picking a new father from six outlandish uncles, she holds her own admirably. (She’d go on to make exactly one more film, with Elvis, no less. It was the Sixties. Career paths were different.)
Each uncle Lewis plays is more absurd than the last: an over-caffeinated photographer, a shell-shocked ex-circus clown, a pilot whose airline experience is… questionable at best. Perhaps the most eyebrow-raising of all is Bugsy Peyton, a mobster who seems to have stepped out of Guys and Dolls by way of Looney Tunes. Lewis’s chauffeur character, Willard Woodward, is the narrative glue, a humble, bumbling guardian angel with a heart of gold and shoes reliably on the wrong feet.
Production trivia buffs get their gold star here: the aircraft used in the film, a 1929 Ford Tri-Motor, is a legit aviation antique and, as of 2022, still exists in airworthy condition. It’s a beautiful relic, even if, in the film, it primarily serves to propel Lewis into a plot detour. Toss in cameos by Gary Lewis & The Playboys (yes, that Gary), and you’ve got a movie very determined to prove that nepotism is adorable.
From Boisterous to Cartoonish
Critically, the film landed like a whoopee cushion, amusing to some, irritating to others, and vaguely nostalgic to those who remember it fondly. Rotten Tomatoes gives it an 80%, which is possibly the result of five very forgiving reviewers. Modern audiences may struggle with the film's pace and episodic structure, but it holds undeniable appeal for Jerry Lewis die-hards and lovers of 1960s cinematic curiosities.
Perhaps more enduring than the film itself is the animated tribute it spawned: Will the Real Jerry Lewis Please Sit Down, a Saturday morning cartoon that distilled Lewis’s multiple personalities into a Saturday-sized dose of chaos. Even decades later, the movie retains a kind of charm, like a boisterous uncle who talks too much at Thanksgiving but somehow still makes you smile.
In sum, The Family Jewels is a flawed but earnest effort. It’s part vaudeville, part sitcom, and part heartfelt ode to the kind of dad who shows up disguised as your mobster clown uncle just to make you laugh. Three stars for the effort, the ambition, and the chutzpah. And for the Ford Tri-Motor. That thing’s a star.
⭐️⭐️⭐️ out of 5
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