Under the Radar DVD of the Week: 'The Geisha Boy'


Posted February 14, 2012 by Dennis King Comment on this article Leave a comment

This week, the oddest DVD to appear on release lists is:

“The Geisha Boy”

Jerry Lewis was still struggling to find his footing after his breakup with partner Dean Martin when he made the pathos-heavy, pratfall-filled 1958 comedy “The Geisha Boy,” due out for the first time on DVD Tuesday.

The fourth film that Lewis made on his own after parting ways with Martin in 1956, this gimmicky comedy, directed by frequent Lewis collaborator Frank Tashlin, begins to show the comic actor perfecting his unique brand of physical comedy and teary sentimentality.

Lewis plays a sad-sack magician named Gilbert Woolley, who takes a desperation gig with the USO to entertain troops on the Far Eastern circuit with his pet rabbit, Harry. After he’s nearly fired for upstaging a haughty movie star (Marie McDonald), Gilbert finds his job saved by a kindly Japanese aristocrat (the great Sessue Hayakawa).

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King spent 31 years as an ink-stained wretch working for newspapers in Seminole, Ada, Oklahoma City and Tulsa. He holds a B.A. degree in English...

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