VISIT TO A SMALL PLANET
US, 1959, 85 minutes, Black and white.
Jerry Lewis, Joan Blackman, Earl Hollimant, Fred Clark, John Williams.
Directed by Norman Taurog.
Visit to a Small Planet is based on a play by Gore Vidal. It was adapted for the screen as a star vehicle for Jerry Lewis. There is more Jerry Lewis than Gore Vidal.
The film was directed by veteran Norman Taurog, Oscar winner for Skippy in the 1930s, director of a range of genres, in the fifties directing a number of Martin and Lewis comedies and in the 1960s, Elvis Presley films.
This was the time of many small budget science fiction films. Jerry Lewis plays a goofy alien who decides to visit earth, to find out what human beings are like, and ends up in a range of Jerry Lewis-styled pratfalls and silly situations.
1. An entertaining film? Comic?
2. A successful Jerry Lewis comedy: style, goonery, mimicry, lack of subtlety? the popularity of Jerry Lewis comedies?
3. There was serious intention in the original play: satire on human beings in the 1960s. Clearly evident in the film, or obscured by the comedy? Did the film have serious intent underlying the comedy?
4. The structure of the film: life in space, the nature of the visit, the contrast of space life and earthly life, the similarities?
5. Kreton (is this too much like ‘cretin’?). Jerry Lewis’s personality and style, goonery in space, his lessons and knowledge? his wanting to be involved in the Civil War? The nature of his visit and impact on human beings? His attitudes? His capacities for reading people’s minds? His not being able to be touched, his helping others, his curiosity about love, the effect of love on him? How was he shown to change? Such sequences as the dance in the café? Why did he decide to stay? The conventions of satire on this behaviour by the device of the visitor from outer space?
6. How satirical was the visit and the fresh look at earth in the 1960s? Money, jobs, love, etc.? Human foibles that were satirized?
7. The satire on Spalding and Mabel? The television programs, keeping the job, manners, Mrs. Spalding bringing refreshments at odd times? What was being satirized in the older American
generation?
8. Was Conrad too dumb a figure in contrast with Kreton? Loving Ellen? The satire on the dumb American hero?
9. Ellen as leading lady? And the satire on the romantic heroine? Her attraction for Conrad, for Kreton?
10. The satire on Mayberry, his wanting to photograph Kreton?
11. The detail of satire of 1960: parties, picnic, dances, the police etc.?
12. How much value was there in the comedy? In the point of the visit to earth as a small planet? The target audience for the film?
