The typical Lewis schtick is cute, but it isn't enough to carry the film (especially without a strong straight man for Lewis to play off), and apart from a couple of very brief bits with Howard Morris, THE NUTTY PROFESSOR offers nothing else. The story is uninteresting, Stella Stevens's startling beauty doesn't make up for her lack of acting talent, some of the dialogue (e.g., the lover's leap scene) is so stilted as to be painful to listen to, and Lewis insists on beating us over the head with the incredibly obvious moral.
Perhaps the worst thing is that nothing we see on screen justifies the adulation Buddy Love receives from everyone he meets. Lewis isn't a bad-looking guy, but come on: he's Jerry Lewis, not Paul Newman (or even Dean Martin). As for his singing, he's OK in a gather-'round-the-piano sort of way, but he's not nearly up to a professional standard. Buddy is also obnoxious and annoying, and his line of patter wouldn't impress a child, let alone a moderately intelligent adult. The discongruity between what the film shows us and what it tells us is simply too jarring for the film to succeed.
Perhaps the worst thing is that nothing we see on screen justifies the adulation Buddy Love receives from everyone he meets. Lewis isn't a bad-looking guy, but come on: he's Jerry Lewis, not Paul Newman (or even Dean Martin). As for his singing, he's OK in a gather-'round-the-piano sort of way, but he's not nearly up to a professional standard. Buddy is also obnoxious and annoying, and his line of patter wouldn't impress a child, let alone a moderately intelligent adult. The discongruity between what the film shows us and what it tells us is simply too jarring for the film to succeed.