bkoganbing
There's not much plot to The Ladies Man. Jerry Lewis plays new college graduate Herbert Heebert who finds his beloved on the day of his graduation in the arms of another. Depressed and somewhat disgusted he starts looking for work vowing never to marry and live a bachelor life.Bob Hope did a film called Bachelor In Paradise around this time. But what he had was nothing compared to the situation that Lewis winds up with. He answers an advertisement for a handyman and finds it's in a private house that has been converted to a residential hotel for women. Beautiful young woman. Hugh Hefner's Playboy Mansion has nothing on this place. But the only way to keep him from leaving is to make sure that Jerry feels needed.After that the whole film becomes a series of skits, some better than others, the best being what he does to tough guy Buddy Lester's hat. Running a close second is his bungling during a live broadcast from the house for a television feature. Helen Traubel plays the owner of the house, a former opera star who has turned her place into this residence because she wanted a family, apparently a family of just daughters.Jerry directed himself and possibly The Ladies Man might have been a real classic if a comedy director had controlled Jerry just a little bit. Still give Jerry Lewis a big A for effort and B+ for results.
Irishchatter
You wouldn't really think Jerry Lewis would be the only guy in a Bachelor hotel with full of girls? Well it seems like the title says it all! I honestly loved seeing him being his usual clumsy old self and of course, he was always the charmer. I honestly would love to have seen his character to have a romantic affectionate for Pat Stanley's character Fay. I suppose he was smitten but couldn't they have at least kissed for just one second?!I loved the layout of the house, it really is well done but I don't think it's good privacy if you ask me haha! I so want a room like 'the room to avoid', maybe with a band, a dancing man and woman, but not a lot, haha. I really liked that scene where we got to see Jerry Lewis dancing with a strikingly sexy chick, it so wants to make you feel uplifted by it!I liked it and if you like Jerry Lewis , watch this!
Jackson Booth-Millard
I really enjoyed the original version of The Nutty Professor by the star and director I first saw in The King of Comedy, and I was looking forward to another film of his, especially if it featured in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die. Basically Herbert H. Heebert (Jerry Lewis, also directing) is a young man has suffered severe heartbreak when his girlfriend has left him for someone else, and he becomes depressed swearing he will never want romance again. With nothing much else to hope for he finds himself a job working in a large house doing such things as cleaning, delivering mail and other general responsibilities, but he has no idea until they all come out that it is a womens' boarding house. The genteel house is run by Miss Helen N. Wellenmellon (Helen Traubel) who irritates him with the nickname "Herby", he is treated by all of the girls as a helpless servant, and of course his fear of women is getting him down, he tries to escape a couple of time. Young and beautiful Fay (Pat Stanley) is the only one he can really confide in, and she helps him to overcome his fear of women, and after many chaotic and slapstick disasters, including an important woman appearing on television in the house, the girls accept that he may want to leave, but of course Herbert cannot bring himself to do it, being in love as well. Also starring Kathleen Freeman as Katie, George Raft, Harry James, Marty Ingels, Buddy Lester as Willard C. Gainsborough, Hope Holiday as Miss Anxious and Lillian Briggs as Lillian. Lewis is fantastic being the highly nerdy, overly nervous and physically infantile character, it reminds you of the style Jim Carrey would bring in his career, the story is simple enough, but it is for the inventive jokes that the film works so well, all timed well, even the simplest thing like a broken bed is really funny, a great comedy classic. Very good!
Gary
This is one of the worst comedies I have ever seen. (How in the world could anyone rave about this thing???) I like some Jerry Lewis comedies. Not having seen this one I looked forward to it. My family and I sat and starred at the screen and, I think, chuckled maybe three times.Spectacular sets, surreal scenes, and Jerry's exaggerated facial expressions do not a funny movie make. The opening scene in which Jerry graduates from junior college and is jilted by his supposed girl friend could have been gold in the hands of Chaplin or Keaton. Heck, even in a Martin & Lewis comedy it would have worked. But Jerry Lewis overacts beyond belief.The scenes involving "baby" are so forced and overdone that what laughs might be there are lost.
AD
