The Jerk (1979)
I’d love you if you were the color of a baboon’s ass.
THE SUMMARY: A simple-minded, racially confused farm boy heads to St. Louis to find his special purpose, stumbling into a fortune only to lose it all and return to where he started. This one is exactly my type of humor - groan-worthy puns and double entendres that are so bad they’re hilarious, and just enough crudeness to keep it spicy. The writing and certain themes are so similar to my all-time favorite comedy Dumb and Dumber, the influence seems apparent, even if nobody admits it.
FROM MOVIE-PICKER KYLE: A classic comedy back when Steve Martin was funny and Carl Reiner wasn't a broken Trump hating man. I like to think of this movie as a spiritual forefather to Dumb and Dumber. No message, no societal themes, just stupid jokes and sight gags that hold up still. Plus, Steve Martin screaming the N-word makes it a watch.
THE BEST:
A+ stupid writing: There are too many great one-liners in this movie for me to quote comprehensively, but here’s a small sample of my favorite scenes and dialogues:
Navin when his carnival manager explains to him he’s made $14.50: ‘Ah, it’s a profit deal! That takes the pressure off!’
Navin getting shot at: ‘He hates these cans! Stay away from the cans!’
Navin asking Marie if she has a boyfriend: ‘Do you think it's possible that someday, you could make love with me and think of him?’ Marie: ‘Who knows, maybe you and he could make love and you could think of me.’ Navin: ‘I'd just be happy to be in there somewhere.’ Honorable mention for the ‘weightless cosmetologist’ line in that scene too.
All these scenes and more are consistently well-written and performed with deadpan perfection. Like a great dad joke, the fact that the comedy is lame only makes it funnier.
It’s a profit deal!
He hates these cans!
Navin and Marie’s first date
A+ running bits into the ground: Likewise, nothing makes a lame joke funnier than running it into the ground and still not stopping, digging a hole to bury it right beside the dead horse beaten to a pulp. There are two other classic moments in this movie where the comedy is just not quitting the bit, and carrying it on far beyond its comedic value on paper: Navin explaining to Marie exactly how many days it feels like he’s known her, and Navin leaving Marie, explaining the growing list of the few items he needs to be happy. Underrated credit for the difficulty of delivering these lines - staying in character through the length and complexity is actually very impressive.
Only four weeks and three days
That’s all I need
The N-word scene: The movie’s comedy isn’t purely exhausted lame jokes though - it does have its edgy moments. How could I write a complete review without acknowledging the infamous N-word moment? One, it actually is pretty clever, since a major plot point is that Navin was raised by a black family, but two, I have to appreciate that a movie with Steve Martin or any white guy screaming ‘you are talking to a n**ger!’ simply could not be made anymore. It’s a classic scene of a bygone era. Martin was interviewed about this movie in 2015, and did not back down or apologize for it, to his credit.
Steve Martin says it
It had to influence Dumb and Dumber, didn’t it?: The movie’s style is nearly copy-paste: puns, double entendres, and a main character who’s always finding a different meaning in every dialogue that’s dumb, but clever. Even Steve Martin’s deadpan performance seems identical to Jim Carrey’s in Dumb and Dumber, especially at certain ‘aha’ moments of realization, like the ‘profit’ line referenced above. But it’s not just the writing and performance style - even general and specific plot points are very similar. Both movies follow buffoons who stumble into fantastic wealth only to lose it all, both movies are about the importance of a woman’s love despite the wealth, and, bizarrely, both movies involve a powder blue suit.
I wouldn’t say the movies are so similar as to call Dumb and Dumber a ripoff - quite frankly, I love that movie too much to disparage it with such accusations - but all of these similarities seem far too numerous to call them simply coincidence. As a reviewer said at the movie’s release, ‘Dumb and Dumber is The Jerk with two jerks instead of one.’ And yet, I can’t find any record of Dumb and Dumber writers, producers, actors, or anybody associated with the movie acknowledging or crediting The Jerk as influential.
Perhaps I’ve missed it. If anybody has seen such a record, please send it my way. It would ease my mind to know one of my favorites properly credited its obvious influence, rather than confront the idea that such a masterpiece could be borderline plagiarized.
THE WORST:
Why is Navin intermittently… uh… challenged?: I get it - he’s supposed to be a moron. But for lack of using he R-word, he’s not supposed to be actually mentally challenged. Yet at times, Navin enters a bizarre mumbly state, and not just when he’s lovestruck over Maria. At the beginning and the end when Navin is a hobo introducing and concluding his story, his voice and vocal patterns are completely different. Is he supposed to be drunk? Did he become challenged? It’s a fool’s errand to over-analyze a movie that’s intentionally stupid, I suppose. But why is Navin at times perfectly clear in his speaking, at one point even mastering a tongue-twister, and at other times incapable of it?
THE RATING: 4/5 Wickies. I could be talked into a 5 - it’s right there. What separates The Jerk and Dumb and Dumber for me is the banter between two works better than it does with just one ‘idiot.’ Still, especially for a movie of its age, The Jerk earns deserved high marks.
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NEXT WEEK: Psycho (1960)
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