With all due respect to THE NUTTY PROFESSOR, THE DISORDERLY ORDERLY is the funniest movie Jerry Lewis ever made. He didn't direct it --- instead he wisely turned those duties over to the master Frank Tashlin. Tashlin keeps Lewis on slapstick track while forgoing much of the maudlin sentimentality that Lewis usually allowed to overwhelm his self-directed movies. As Jerome Littlefield, Lewis is an extremely inept orderly allowed to run amok by hospital administrator Glenda Farrell much to the chagrin of the shrewish head nurse, played by regular Lewis foil Kathleen Freeman.
The gags are plentiful and all on target: Lewis grappling with an inordinate amount of laundry and a very uncooperative laundry chute; Lewis having to relieve himself while a hypochondriac patient recalls her extremely small bladder; the silent ward has subtitles! Lewis is great and Freeman is her usually tightly wound crank. Alice Pearce is very funny as Mrs. Fuzzybee, who insists on revealing her ailments in very vivid detail.
The gags are plentiful and all on target: Lewis grappling with an inordinate amount of laundry and a very uncooperative laundry chute; Lewis having to relieve himself while a hypochondriac patient recalls her extremely small bladder; the silent ward has subtitles! Lewis is great and Freeman is her usually tightly wound crank. Alice Pearce is very funny as Mrs. Fuzzybee, who insists on revealing her ailments in very vivid detail.