The Family Jewels * (1965, Jerry Lewis, Sebastian Cabot, Neil Hamilton) – Classic Movie Review 10,664

Jerry Lewis tries to do a Kind Hearts and Coronets, giving himself seven parts in the 1965 comedy The Family Jewels, a film he directs and has co-written (with Bill Richmond) about a 10-year-old heiress (Donna Butterworth) who has a driver-cum-protector and has to pick between the six uncles who want to adopt her – or is it the $30 million she has inherited?

Lewis shows enough versatility and chutzpah, but do you like Jerry enough to see seven of him? Butterworth is terribly irritating. But otherwise there is a good cast: Sebastian Cabot, Robert Strauss, Milton Frome, Ellen Corby, Gene Baylos, Herbie Faye, Marjorie Bennett, Jay Adler, Neil Hamilton, John Hubbard, Scatman Crothers and Anne Baxter as Actress in In-Flight Movie (uncredited).

Lewis plays Willard Woodward / James Peyton / Everett Peyton / Julius Peyton / Captain Eddie Peyton / Skylock Peyton / and ‘Bugs’ Peyton.

The photographer Uncle Julius is based on Lewis’s Professor Kelp in The Nutty Professor with the same voice, glasses and mannerisms.

Lewis as the chauffeur listens to a record of his son Gary Lewis’s band’s biggest hit ‘This Diamond Ring’.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,664

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