Rent The Nutty Professor (1963)

Mid-Century Modern Mayhem, Thin on Soul - The Nutty Professor review by griggs

It’s basically a Jekyll-and-Hyde gag dressed up in mid-century modern candyfloss — and, honestly, the dressing does a lot of the heavy lifting. The lab is a riot of multicoloured tubes and space-age clutter, the lighting snaps, the makeup is loud, and the whole thing commits to a cartoon world where taste is optional but confidence isn’t.

What’s thinner is the human stuff. The writing doesn’t give Julius Kelp much depth beyond “please like me”, and Buddy Love is less a character than a swaggering warning label. The film also leans on women as décor and punchlines: Stella Stevens is terrific, but the role mostly asks her to smile and be pursued, while Kelp’s humiliations are milked for laughs like that’s the main course.

Then the ending swerves into something real. When the formula fails and the mask drops, the self-acceptance speech lands with an unexpected thud — you can almost feel Lewis’s embarrassment crackling off the screen.

Dated - The Nutty Professor review by JD

Just being scruffy, goofy, shy and cross-eyed is amusing only for 5 seconds. After 5 minutes it becomes tiring. I could only stand it for 10 minutes. This might have been funny 52 years ago but even then only for some. Directing and playing the main character (always in shot) must be great for an ego-maniac, but he clearly wasn't that critical of himself.