User Reviews

You just got to love Jerry Lewis. He is so amazing and talented. In this movie he plays the janitor Sidney Pythias, who manages to get himself always into trouble. Mike Damon a police officer sets his mind into helping him do something with his life, as someone did for him in the past. The role of the police officer is played by Darren McGavin and you can also see Frank Gorshin in a small part! So Jerry Lewis decides that he wants to become a police officer like Mike who is respected by the good citizens and make himself someone important. So the training starts with his officer friend helping him to get ready for his tests. Soon though he comes face to face with his past and the new troubles it will create! As always Jerry is great and this film is a lot of fun.

What's this with the trivia section on IMDb for this film? While I knew that this was Jerry Lewis' first solo effort after his breakup with Dean Martin, I have no idea what this comment in the trivia section means regarding Dean Martin not wanting to wear a police uniform. Did he hate cops or think he looked bad in black or was this just the excuse he gave because he couldn't stand the thought of making another film with Jerry?! I'd love to know more about this.

With the absence of Dean Martin, the studio decided to pair Lewis with Darren McGavin. And, since you've never heard of the great comedy team of Martin & McGavin, you can assume the results did not set the world on fire. The choice of films was pretty odd, though, as Jerry was now in his 30s--making him an incredibly old delinquent! And, for the first time, this delinquent got to produce his own film.

During an amazingly non-violent rumble, Jerry is accidentally picked up by the police as they think he, too, is one of the punks. The team of cops is led by McGavin--a cop who has been trying for years to rehabilitate these juveniles instead of just locking them up like the Captain recommends. In a rather non-subtle but funny scene, Jerry is thrilled that he is being let go by the police...you just have to see it. But McGavin sees Jerry and decides he can rehabilitate this boy! And, since Jerry is a completely incompetent janitor, McGavin is able to eventually interest him in a career in law enforcement. But the road is long and a lot of stuff happens in the meantime--such as constant run-ins with local hoodlums who delight in harassing him.

Along the way, McGavin meets a know-it-all social worker (Martha Hyer). Naturally, they hate each other so you know they'll be in love by the end of the film! Wow, is this lady stupid and annoying! I think her character was very poorly written--no one can be that that opinionated and that clueless! Aside from looking nice, she was a major deficit in the film--possibly due to bad acting or a badly written character or bad direction or all three.

So how does this all stack up compared to a typical Martin & Lewis film? Well, it's pretty obvious that the roles were originally written for the team but most of the musical numbers have been removed. While it caught my wife by surprise, Jerry sang one of the songs that Dean would have sung in the film--and did a very nice job. Too often in the early films, he deliberately sang badly and people assumed he couldn't sing. Jerry once again also mugged a lot more for the camera--though less than in many of his previous or later films. However, I also noticed that when he wasn't overacting, Lewis also had some nice scenes where you could see he could actually act--too bad he occasionally chose shtick instead of acting, as I think his acting skills are often under-appreciated (and which weren't as apparent until some of his later non-comedic roles). My wife, who is definitely not a fan, noticed that he was a lot more human in this film--and was very easy to like when he wasn't hamming it up. Surprisingly, she even liked the film--and she's a hard sell indeed. I'd say the film is actually better than most of the Martin & Lewis films, as it's a lot less comedy and more a well-rounded film.

By the way, there is a scene towards the beginning where McGavin tries very hard to befriend Lewis. I am sure it played well in 1957, but seen today, it sure looks like McGavin is trying to make a pass at him! You can see what what might be seen by some as a gay subtext a few other times, too. See it for yourself--I am sure you'll see what I mean.

"The Delicate Delinquent" was originally intended as Martin & Lewis' next project. But they split up. Martin was replaced by Darren McGavin who didn't sing (thank heavens) as Jerry Lewis struck out on his own for the first time.

Jerry plays Sidney Pythias a bumbling janitor of an apartment building. One day he accidently gets mixed up with a gang of delinquents including Monk (Robert Ivers),and Artie Richard Bakalyan) and they all get arrested. Officer Mike Damon (McGavin) has a desire to help delinquents turn their lives around. For this purpose he takes pity on Sidney. He sells his idea to his Captain (Horace McMahon) who reluctantly agrees. Sidney and the others are released and Mike begins to work with Sidney.

Into the picture comes lawyer Martha Henshaw (Martha Hyer) sent by city council to assess the delinquent situation. She and Mike don't hit it off. They quarrel and Sidney walks off accusing them of using him for their own selfish purposes. Mike meanwhile has become attracted to the attractive Martha but she walks away.

Mike goes to Sidney and agrees to help him enroll in the Police Academy with a view to becoming a respected police man. Unbelievably Sidney makes it through the first 12 weeks of the program. For the final week he is assigned to Mike to go on patrol in you guessed it, his own neighborhood. After an unbelievable delivering of a baby by Sidney, he and Mike are called to a heist in which Monk and the gang are involved. During the skuffle with police a shot is fired and Artie is wounded in the leg. Sidney's gun, which he had lost in the fight, is identified as the weapon that fired the shot.

Back at the station with Sidney about to be dropped from the police and charged, Monk steps up and ......................................................................

There's more dramatic scenes in this Lewis film than fans were used to but Jerry comes through and elicits a little pathos along the way. He has time for some comedic moments but they are not as madcap as we had become used to.

Others in the cast are Lewis regular Milton Frome as a crabby apartment resident, Mary Webster as Mary, Sidney's love interest, Jefferson Searles as Mr. Crow a crackpot inventor as well as familiar faces Frank Gorshin as a street punk, Emile Meyer, Don Megowan, and Emory Parnell as various cops and Dave Willock as the recruit with the good memory. Rocky Marciano was supposed to be in there somewhere but I missed him.

Jerry did OK in his first solo effort and would go on to a lengthy list of solo comedies. Dean Martin by the way, did OK too.

In his first solo run without Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis is wonderful as a bumbling janitor in a tenement building who decides to make something out of himself by becoming a police officer. He finds himself walking a fine line between his friendship with Officer Mike Damon(DARREN McGAVIN), who has taken a personal interest in him and believes in him, and the local gang of neighborhood delinquents headed by Monk(ROBERT IVERS) and his sidekick Artie(RICHARD BAKALYAN). Lewis' exposure to the police academy provides most of the film's humor as he fumbles and stumbles his way through his coursework. The funniest sequence here is when the recruits are given a class in hand-to-hand combat by a Japanese sumo wrestler, who picks Lewis to demonstrate the techniques on. The interpreter tells Lewis he was picked because the wrestler says he looks Japanese! After getting karate-chopped numerous times and twisted into a pretzel, Lewis pleads with the martial artist to let him live- in Japanese! This is what makes the sequence so hilarious- that Lewis would be able to speak Japanese, considering who he was and where he was living. It's a riot to watch these two men walk off the mat with their arms around each other, conversing fluently in Japanese. In one critical scene, Monk and Artie pay a visit to Lewis in his basement apartment. These guys are poster boys for Anti-Social Personality Disorder. Monk tells Lewis that before he leaves this world, he going to make a lot of noise. Lewis tells him that there are lots of good, decent people in the world who are not looking to break anyone's back and that he wants to be one of them. When they leave, Artie asks Monk why he didn't let him rough Lewis up and Monk, clearly affected by what Lewis told him, says "I got confused... He made sense." As part of their final evaluation before being graduated from the academy, the rookie cops are paired with veteran officers to go out on armed street patrol and Lewis gets paired up with his buddy Mike. Called to a burglary in progress, the two buddies and other officers confront Monk and his gang and a free-for-all ensues. A gunshot rings out and Artie falls to the ground, a bullet in his leg. The discharge is quickly traced to Lewis' revolver and Artie accuses him of deliberately shooting him. It looks like Lewis' police career might be over before it even starts, but someone from an unlikely corner comes forward to speak up for him and tell the Precinct Captain(HORACE McMAHON) what really occurred. Someone who had firsthand knowledge of what happened with Lewis's gun and how Artie wound up getting shot. Someone who vindicates Lewis and himself. This is a wonderful film that still holds up 50 years later. I give it a 10 out of 10.

Good movie good training coming soon on paramount pictures mod blu-ray release December

In some respects this doesn't feel your usual Hollywood movie. One gets the feeling that Jerry Lewis, now on his own without longtime partner Dean Martin, is drawing inspiration from foreign comics in how non-sequitur parts of the narrative seem. However, he is definitely influenced by American filmmaking, since he is spoofing the trend of juvenile delinquent flicks that were popular at the time.

Of course Lewis is no rebel without a cause, and he's not stuck inside a blackboard jungle. But he lives on a street that looks like it is situated in a rough section of town. And when he is accidentally picked up by the cops with some gang members his age, he inadvertently becomes part of a police lineup.

In typical Lewis style we have a bumbling and socially inept character who is not like the other boys. And his sensitivity or should I say delicate nature, attracts the attention of an experienced copper (Darren McGavin) who tells his boss (Horace McMahon) that he'd like to take the kid under his wing.

Some of the buddy bonding that occurs between Lewis and McGavin has slightly homoerotic vibes at first. That is until a sexy female lawyer (Martha Hyer) enters the picture. She and McGavin quarrel about what's best for Lewis. While sparring, the two somehow fall in love. The pair ultimately become surrogate "parents" to Lewis.

Meanwhile Lewis has decided he'd also like to be a cop, presumably to take the story in more outlandish directions. The police academy sequence is certainly humorous, and as expected, he fouls things up. More than once he hijacks the training with his screwy antics...like the humorous fingerprinting scene where he gets ink all over one of the instructors. Plus there is an amusing bit where Lewis tangles with a Japanese wrestler as part of a self-defense course. Ouch, that looks painful!

I have to admit that some of the hijinks feel a bit forced and some of the comic routines are a bit too stretched out to sustain laughs. But comedy is about taking risks, and Lewis is to be commended for trying, even for scenes that are not altogether very funny.

What I like most about the film is how character-driven it is. We want this nut to succeed and make something of himself. And that is exactly what happens in the end. After he graduates from the academy and becomes a full-fledged officer of the law, he attempts to help his neighborhood pals. There is also a girl (Mary Webster) that's been sweet on him, whom he now feels comfortable dating.

THE DELICATE DELINQUENT was a huge hit with audiences and proved that Lewis could carry a movie on his own, without help from Dean Martin. He would be one of Paramount's top moneymakers until 1965. In this picture, he forges ahead with the help of a good support system. Even if he doesn't seem grateful at first.