Pardners ** (1956, Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Lori Nelson, Jeff Morrow) – Classic Movie Review 7187

Pardners, the title of this 12th Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis comedy is unfortunate, because their pardnership was close to breaking point by this time. Indeed, the night the film was released in cinemas, they made their last appearance together at New York’s Copacabana club.

But none of their tensions show on screen in director Norman Taurog’s fairly amusing 1956 Western spoof, featuring Martin as Wade Kingsley, the foreman of a ranch in financial trouble, and Lewis as rich New Yorker and would-be cowpoke Wade Kingsley, running up against all the trouble and tough hombres that the West can muster in a frontier town.

The songs by Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen, plus imperious acting from Agnes Moorehead as Lewis’s millionaire mom, Mrs Matilda Kingsley, as well as a slew of great character actors (including Lon Chaney Jr, Lee Van Cleef and Jack Elam), help to keep it going smoothly along in lighthearted vein.

Pardners is a remake of Bing Crosby, Martha Raye and Frances Farmer’s Rhythm on the Range (1936).

Also in the cast are Lori Nelson, Jeff Morrow, John Baragrey, Jackie Loughery, Milton Frome, Richard Aherne, Bob Steele, Emory Parnell, Douglas Spencer and Scott Douglas.

Pardners is directed by Norman Taurog, runs 90 minutes, is made by York Pictures Corporation, released by Paramount Pictures, is written by Sidney Sheldon (screenplay) and Jerry Davis (screen story), based on a story by Mervin J Houser, is shot in Technicolor by Daniel L Fapp, is produced by Paul Jones and Dean Martin, scored by Frank De Vol, and designed by Roland Anderson and Hal Pereira.

Its healthy US gross was $7,920,000.

RIP Jerry Lewis (1926–2017).

Jerry Lewis [Jerome Joseph Levitch], slapstick comedy legend, died at 91 on 20 August 2017.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7187

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