The NUTTY PROFESSOR

   Film (1963). Jerry Lewis Productions/Paramount. Dir Jerry Lewis, starring Lewis, Stella Stevens, Dell Moore, Kathleen Freeman, Howard Morris. Screenplay Lewis, Bill Richmond. 107 mins. Colour.

   Even those who do not normally enjoy the heavily overstated comedy of Lewis, which depends a lot on gesticulation and face-pulling, admit this to be one of his best films; it is a remake as a campus comedy of DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE, with Lewis playing both Professor Kelp, the nerd who takes the potion, and the revoltingly smooth, sexually charged lounge lizard and crooner, Buddy Love, whom he intermittently becomes; the film is an imaginative act ofspite against Lewis's former partner and co-star Dean Martin, recognizable even in this broad parody. Not only is it funny, it hits off the subtext of Robert Louis STEVENSON's original rather well.

   PN

   See also: CINEMA.