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.
Review of The Delicate Delinquent
