Jerry Lewis.
From what i gather people either love him or hate him. Personally,I love his comedy genius, slapstick has always made me laugh more than most comedy's. He also, as i am sure you all know, was one of the biggest ever stars to come out of America, in the 60's he practically had the freedom of Paramount studio's and his movies always topped the box office with the original Nutty Professor being among my favourites. The modern version, (in my opinion), is utter trash.

Onto this 400 footer from Columbia, here is the plot summary,
Gerald Clamson (Lewis) loves fishing on his annual two week holiday. Unfortunately one day at the ocean he reels in an injured gangster in a scuba diving suit named Syd Valentine (also played by Lewis). Syd tells Gerald about diamonds he has stolen from the other gangsters and hands him a map. Gerald escapes as frogmen from a yacht machine gun the beach. They swim ashore and locate Syd where they machine gun him. Gerald heads to the Hilton Inn in San Diego where Syd claimed the diamonds were hidden. There he meets Suzie Cartwright (Susan Bay), an airline stewardess. While searching for the diamonds, he needs to avoid the hotel staff after inadvertently hurting the manager (Del Moore). Gerald disguises himself as a character noticeably similar to Professor Julius Kelp from The Nutty Professor, while trying to stay one step ahead of the other gangsters who are on his tail, as well as the hotel detectives led by the manager—all the while courting Suzie. As each of the gangsters see Gerald, an identical lookalike to the deceased Syd, they have nervous breakdowns; one imagining himself a dog, one turning into a Larry Fine lookalike, the other (Charlie Callas, in his usual character) becoming a hopeless stutterer. The one man Gerald meets who believes him, who identifies himself as a FBI special agent, turns out to be an escapee from an insane asylum.
The movie climaxes in a chase where Gerald is pursued by Thor's gangsters, a rival group of gangsters who had made a deal with Syd to buy his diamonds, and a group of Chinese who smuggle the diamonds disguised as plastic pearls.
They return to the Pacific Ocean, where Syd reappears. The gangsters chase Syd into the ocean, and Gerald and Suzie walk away, deeply in love. The diamonds presumably are never located.

The narrator in this short is actually not too bad, the voice seems to be a different tone altogether from the others and it isn't anyway near as intrusive, in fact its kept to the point and also very minimal.
There's a little story behind this film for us.
We originally bought a copy of this film for £16 from movieland international many years ago, we knew at the time of purchase that it was an ex library print so it was full of black lines. Many were cleaned out with 222 but there are still a lot there.

Browsing through Barry's Indi 8 list i spotted a copy, not only that it was in his 50% sale so it was £8.00 + P+P.Knowing how many of these Columbia copies have faded i asked the question and, as Barry said, its £8 so well worth a look.
Well, what a great surprise, only very little colour shift and its in superb condition, hardly a mark worth mentioning so after around 30 years we have now replaced a worn print with a great print.
It has to be said that the print is pin sharp and the sound,as always on theses Columbia cut-downs, is A1 with excellent bass as well as clarity.
Having recently seen the feature on disc i believe that this 400 footer is actually much better, the comedy flows better and all the main funny sequences are included here all within a very funny 20 minutes.
These images really do not do the print justice, i must try and do better

Tom, thank you for this VERY well written review. It makes me want to see this, although when I was much younger, I thought Jerry Lewis was downright goofy (not to mention not very attractive-LOL)! Congratulations on owning a nice copy of it. I've gotten spoiled by these 400' digests, as now a full-length feature is too long for me to sit through! Give me only the good stuff!
P.S. I like those screen shots!

Funny you should say that Tim, i myself am getting back into the 400 and mini feature collecting for the same reason. I watch a lot of my films on my own now the kids are all grown up and are no longer interested in the films. They occasionaly come down to the film room when i say im watching a short or some cartoons, (i think they feel sorry for me ). A Shame really because they all grew up loving the film shows.
So for me i enjoy watching many great movies in less than two hours and all action packed, although this time around i am being much more fussy about what i pay,and especially the quality and condition of what i am buying.

Wenn Sie hier auf Links zu eBay klicken und einen Kauf tätigen, kann dies dazu führen, dass diese Website eine Provision erhält.

Tom, it's always a gamble for me when I make a purchase because my films are usually bought off of eBay. So I have to endure whatever quality I receive (only once have I returned a film). But I enjoy threading up the machine and operating it as well as watching the screen. Some color fade and scratches kind of add charm to the event. I try to get my teenaged daughter interested in my films and she will sometimes watch with me (as long as popcorn is involved). And the mrs. has only watched with me a few times but isn't impressed. Hey, anytime you like, write up another review of one of your faves! I'm due for a review myself!

Thanks Tim, more reviews soon.

Update of images, 2018 viewing.

That's very sharp Tom; personally I liked the films better when he went solo, than when he was teamed with Dean Martin.

yes i preferred his solo films, especially the nutty professor and the family jewels,
These Columbia 400 footers really stood out for having excellent print quality and exceptional sound at a time when prints from the UK were nothing more than average from the likes of mountain.

I bought a 16mm print from David Guest of "Artists and Models" with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis - although I like him and I liked his partnership - although flawed with Dean Martin. I really liked this film as well as his solo efforts. Unfortunately having seen some footage of an interview he gave a year or two before he passed with a film student who had done his research on the star - Jerry Lewis came across as very rude and monosyllabic - which for me tarnished his image.

Tom,
Do you feel the color has held up well in the 2 and one-third or so years since the first set of pics were taken?
It appears to me that it has...

I am a big fan of slapstick, but not a huge Jerry Lewis fan. Seems to me like Jim Carrey, in some of his films at least, patterned his comedy acting after Jerry Lewis a bit...

There's one I like, I don't know if it's called 'Who's minding the Store', but a woman takes a vacuum cleaner back, and he does a few adjustments, and it sucks up everything, including her dog.

Thats the Robert, another one we have reviewed on here is dont give up the ship. Its a slightly abridged feature.

Hello Greg,
Im mainly referring to the colour as a whole for the age of the print, unless the film was kept in direct sunlight or heat/humidity, the colours wouldn't change too much after just two year's. Trouble is you never know these days, some films seem to fade overnight.

I kept all my super 8s in a cupboard in the dark, in a spare room, and I keep the blinds drawn to stop the sun getting in, and the colour films still turned red.

its always so disappointing to watch a film to see the fade taking over.
our first experience of it was our 400ft version of the French connection. it literally turned from good to red in no time, this was a long time ago now, before i even had a PC so not knowing any better we put it in the bin, it was unwatchable and I was so disappointed as this cut down was one of the best ones. we have not been able to find a good one since, thankfully no other films have faded to this extent or at this speed since.
all our films are kept in dark rooms with no windows, my own being in a lower ground room, again no windows and cold/cool all the year round.

Agree, Tom and Robert — I store my films in the same manner, but am finding the tell-tale signs of fade, regardless. After 45-plus years in the hobby, we’re seeing pretty much the end of the life span of a large number of color prints, overall. As a result, I’ve given up on purchasing “color” prints, and only purchase black and white prints. I depend on the more reliable, consistent, newer screening technologies when it comes to color.

Colour prints are still perfectly fine as we keep saying here and elsewhere John, just so long as you don't want mass produced Super 8mm films from the 1960's and 1970's.
(Even some of these can be, and are often still very very good for colour, especially Walton prints.)

Many short classic titles originally released in large quantities that may very well have faded to red now, will also be available as a later printed edition on LPP , Fuji or Agfa stock, post 1985 production runs.
In these cases, these reprints will also look perfectly fine and as new for colour palette in almost all cases.

You really don't have to limit yourself to just b/w prints on film any time soon, just yet.

The only problem with a lot of the LPP prints now is the price you have to pay, and thats when you can find them. The average price for a good colour print is 200 plus nowadays which is fine if you have it. Its one of the reasons we ventured into 16mm.
This particular film i have reviewed here is one of the few exceptions now for the Columbia titles.
A friend of mine use to work at the local BBC film archives here in Plymouth, i showed him where and how we stored our movies and he did make a point of telling me that eventually all but a very few will fade no matter how well we store them.
It is very difficult each time i view a movie as to whether or not we should keep it or sell on especially while they still have some value left, the idea of them becoming worthless, (and some titles probably are), is not something i relish.

Back to this review, the way i understand it, is that the next time i view it, possibly a few years down the road, the fade could well suddenly deepen to pink or red as in our old copy of French Connection copy ,hence the extra images here to compare with a few years ago. the one good thing about these reviews is that anything i view from here on thats been put up here i can add a couple of extra images to compare them with the first ones. Assuming the forum continues.
Lets hope it does although im not too sure with how few people seem to contribute compared to the amount of actual members there are and those who just look in.

If you and I wish this forum to continue Tom, then it will!

That applies while ever there are ANY two people willing to contribute to its existence and its upkeep.

There is no way people who have contributed for a number of years to this forum, should ever be forced to lose all of the data they have ever submitted here.
They should always be able to gain access to it again so long as they wish to.

Hopefully the forum will continue to have far more than two regular contributors just as it does today, but it only needs two to want it, to still give it a reason to exist.

All others can twitch their curtains incognito all day long if they so wish, it should make no difference to the longevity of this or any other forum Tom.

Thanks Andrew, but I’m not only speaking of the mass-produced films of the 1970s. My collection cuts across a broad swath of film distributors, including Derann, etc., and those color films, too, are showing the undeniable traits of fade. Denying it or lecturing about it doesn’t make it so, and my personal experience is that a lot of color films out there are indeed turning — hence my decision to only collect black and white films, while leaving color movies to other technologies. I’m giving away the vast majority of my color films to other collector friends who own the format simply for format’s sake.

What era of Derann colour films are you referring to John?

Throw me some titles you have of the Derann films that are fading if you will please John.
I'd be most interested to learn which ones you refer to.

Personally I don't know anyone who owns a boat load of Super 8mm film and watches them all just for the sake of the format.
Everyone who I speak with who is an enthusiast of Super 8mm film, loves the beauty and unique charm of screening these real films and the benefits gained from the convenient format on this gauge of real film, nothing more, nothing less and nothing else. No other reason.

Happy to — to name a few, Kansas City extract from Oklahoma, West Side Story extracts, Old Mill (Disney), among others that I’ve given away. Similar to how some collectors overstate Blackhawk, let’s not allow misty nostalgia for the past color the fact that even Derann was not immune to print fade (or even engaging in copyright infringement as one reputable dealer informed me as one of the reasons Derann folded).

I know plenty of collectors who forego image and sound quality and collect films simply for the sake of the format itself. I’m not knocking those collectors, but to say that doesn’t exist simply denies reality. I have a special place in my heart for the film format, but let’s not be so ensconced in the hobby as to deny the simply reality around us.

I have very little in the way of colour films in Super 8. Not sure that all titles would have been available into the period of LPP; then there are the B&W prints on colour stock that have turned red. These films were never cheap, and I wouldn't have wanted to buy the same titles all over again because they were on a different stock.
I had a letter printed in Movie Maker back in 81, when I really didn't know much about films, and the subject of fading came up, and although I kept my films in ideal conditions, it would make no difference as the changes were in the chemicals. I had wrongly assumed that fading was caused by sunlight/daylight, that's why I kept mine in the dark.

I have a very poor quality trailer reel from Derann, and the leader says Canterbury Films. I only ever bought one from Canterbury Films, and the quality was far better than most of what was available in the UK. I doubt Derann were given permission to print these.

Yes, Robert — it’s my understanding from a reputable dealer, as well as a very knowledgeable collector, that Derann’s later releases were very questionable from a copyright license perspective. It was the primary reason I stopped purchasing Derann prints, as I can’t be associated with a firm that engages in those types of practices, namely piracy.