The Bellboy

Stanley works as a bellboy at a large hotel in Miami Beach. He does his job: carries luggage, prepares rooms, parks cars and helps the guests. He does all of it wrong. Asked to park one car, he takes every car in the lot out one by one. Asked to move a chair, he rearranges the whole ballroom. He does not speak; through the film he says almost nothing. The narrative builds no plot; the sections are lined up without connecting. Jerry Lewis writes, directs and plays the lead. It is his first work as a director. It was shot very quickly; the studio wanted a fast film to fill a gap, and Lewis made it at the hotel where he was staying. Its most striking technical feature is the use of a video system; Lewis set up a rig on set so he could watch a take immediately, and the method later became common in cinema. The structure is a series of sketches; each section works on its own and is short. The humour is entirely physical and about timing; there is almost no dialogue. At the opening a producer character comes out and tells the audience directly that the film has no story. The hotel is real and the shooting was done while it was operating. Who it is for: viewers who like the silent comedy tradition and Jerry Lewis. Who it is not for: there is no story, some sketches are weak, and the humour has dated.