Who's Minding the Store?

Who's Minding the Store?, directed by Frank Tashlin and starring Jerry Lewis, opened on November 28, 1963, following a department store heiress hiding her wealth from her working class fiancé, whose mother tries to drive him off by assigning him a series of impossible jobs at the store. The film's most memorable sequence has Jerry Lewis miming typing on an invisible typewriter in rhythm to Leroy Anderson's orchestral piece "The Typewriter," a bit that became one of his most iconic physical comedy routines, one he kept performing live for decades afterward. This was the second to last of eight films Tashlin and Lewis made together; the pair made one more film together after it. Who it's for: anyone curious about one of Jerry Lewis's most iconic pantomime routines, from the second to last entry in an eight film director-actor partnership. Who it's not for: viewers wanting a comedy tightly bound to its story, since the famous typewriter scene stands apart from the film's plot as a self-contained set piece.