Believe it or not, but this is the first time I have sat down to watch
Jerry Lewis' original
Nutty Professor. Sure, I have seen snippets here and there over the years. But even then, it never really registered with me at all. Even though I'm a fan of
Eddie Murphy's remake, I never really sought out to check out the original. It's kind of odd working my way backwards because I was expecting certain things in this one. But clearly, there is only so much one can do given the year that this came out.
Overall, it was a pretty decent flick. It was actually better than I thought it would be. If anything, I was expecting to really like the Professor and not so much
Buddy Love. But how can you not like seeing
Jerry channeling a little bit of
Frank Sinatra and
Dean Martin in the performance. There are a handful of funny moments as well. Some of it pratfalls and some of it with line delivery. Definitely worth a
Rent.
Also, it immediately dawned on me where
Matt Groening and
Hank Azaria got the idea of the
Professor Frink as seen in
The Simpsons. Both the look and the voice is influenced by what
Jerry created. It's crazy how much of a fan I was of
The Simpsons only to now just make that connection.