Hollywood or Bust * (1956, Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Anita Ekberg, Pat Crowley, Maxie Rosenbloom) – Classic Movie Review 7451

Director Frank Tashlin’s 1956 comedy Hollywood or Bust is the final Dean Martin-Jerry Lewis movie together. Sadly, it is a feeble satirical farce on life in Hollywood, in which Martin plays the broke singer Steve Wiley, who tries to steal the car won by nerdy, star-struck movie fan Malcolm Smith (Lewis), claiming he won it too.

After Steve tells Malcolm that he lives in Hollywood next to Anita Ekberg’s home, the duo agree to drive cross-country in the 1956 shiny red Chrysler New Yorker convertible with Malcolm’s Great Dane from New York to Las Vegas and Hollywood, where they meet the pneumatic Anita Ekberg (billed as guest star).

Handicapped by Erna Lazarus’s and an uncredited Tashlin’s tepid screenplay, frenzied Lewis whirls in ever decreasing circles to raise a few laughs. Martin’s laid-back style works for him, as always, getting by mainly on charm alone.

Also in the cast are Pat Crowley, Maxie Rosenbloom, Willard Waterman, Jack McElroy, Mike Ross, Frank Wilcox, Wendell Niles, Kathryn Card, Richard Karlan, Tracey Roberts and Ben Welden.

After Hollywood or Bust, it was bust for the duo, who broke up, allegedly because Martin refused to work as hard as Lewis. They did not speak to each other off set. Lewis said he never saw the film as it was too painful a reminder of the end of the stars’ working relationship.

Lazarus’s screenplay was conceived as a vehicle for Shirley Booth and Humphrey Bogart about an ex-chorus girl and a con man on their way to California. When Tashlin re-worked it for Martin and Lewis, it bore little resemblance to the original screenplay, though Lazarus keeps sole writing credit.

The location for the service station scenes is Live Oak Street in Thousand Oaks, California.

Erna Lazarus died on 19 February 2006, aged 102.

Jerry Lewis died on 20 August 2017, aged 91. Martin Scorsese on Jerry Lewis in The King of Comedy: ‘It was like watching a virtuoso pianist at the keyboard’.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7451

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com