Three Ring Circus ** (1954, Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Joanne Dru, Zsa Zsa Gabor) – Classic Movie Review 6622

Director Joseph Pevney’s passable 1954 minor comedy movie Three Ring Circus turned out to be one of the film star partnership duo Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis’s weakest efforts. The story and screenplay are written by actor Don McGuire, a friend of Lewis’s, who persuaded him to write a movie script for him.

Martin and Lewis play Pete Nelson and Jerry Hotchkiss, penniless former US Army buddies who decide to join a circus where their antics will be easily accepted. Lewis is roaringly daft as the lion tamer’s assistant who wants to become a clown, while Martin has trouble with Jill Brent (Joanne Dru) and Saadia (Zsa Zsa Gabor).

McGuire’s screenplay turned out to be sentimental and shaky, requiring input by Pevney. And the movie is further marred by a high level of the unengaging mix of mugging and mawkishness that Lewis loved so much. In what is more of a vehicle for Lewis, the naturally warm and amusing Martin is not given enough funny stuff to do. The film does have its entertaining moments, though.

Also in the cast are Wallace Ford as Sam Morley, Sig Ruman as Colonel Fritz Schlitz, Elsa Lanchester as The Bearded Lady, Gene Sheldon as Puffo the Clown, Nick Cravat, Chick Chandler, Kathleen Freeman, Douglas Fowley, Al Hill, Hoe Gray, Bobby Kay, Donald Kerr, Ralph Peters, George E Stone, Neil Levitt, Louis Lettieri and Philip Van Zandt.

Three Ring Circus is a Paramount film shot in Technicolor and VistaVision by Loyal Griggs, produced by Hal B Wallis, scored by Walter Scharf and designed by Hal Pereira.

Lewis’s friend McGuire also co-wrote the entertaining Martin and Lewis film Artists and Models (1955).

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 6622

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