Hardly Working (1980) starring Jerry Lewis, Susan Oliver
When a circus clown is unexpectedly out of work in the middle of the season, he has trouble finding a new job. He’s Hardly Working.
Synopsis
In Hardly Working, Jerry Lewis plays a circus clown. He loses his job, along with the other performers, when the circus shuts down in mid-season. He goes through a montage of failed attempts at new jobs, before landing a job working at the post office. Although he still has his clownish moments, he grows into the job, becoming a competent worker. Unwittingly, he’s dating his boss’ daughter. Which causes conflict, that’s eventually resolved
Review
Hardly Working isn’t a bad comedy, but it’s not a great one, either. It frankly needs to be edited down. Parts are very good, and other parts are simply slow, and drag.
Montage of Jobs
- Auto garage
- Glass factory
- Discotheque
- Cook at a Japanese restaurant.
- Pharmacy/gift shop
- Post Office (interview)
- Dance studio (moonlighting)
- Post Office (actual job)
Positives
- The good news is, the various vignettes of the jobs he fails at are both short and funny.
- Strangling the answering machine over the phone was quite funny.
- The mailbox with a mind of its own was also quite funny.
- Accidentally “borrowing” the Goodyear blimp.
- “Do you have a beer?”
Negatives
- He repeats the same “clumsy knocking over” routine too many times.
- The imaginary scene at the disco takes too long, and could be edited out and not missed.
- The scene with him talking to himself in drag could be cut, and it wouldn’t affect the movie at all.
Cast of characters
- Jerry Lewis (The Nutty Professor) … Bo Hooper. Hobo circus clown. He, and the entire circus, are fired in the middle of the season when the circus folds.
- Susan Oliver (The Disorderly Orderly) … Claire Trent. Bo’s sister, who invites him to live with her family until he gets back on his feet. She keeps finding him job that, despite his best intentions, he’s a failure at.
- Roger C. Carmel (The Transformers, Star Trek: The Original Series) … Robert Trent. Bo’s hard-to-like brother in law.
- Deanna Lund (Land of the Giants) … Millie. Bo’s love interest, whom he first meets at the auto garage.
- Harold J. Stone (The Big Mouth) … Frank Loucazi. Manager at the post office. Unknown to Bo, he’s Millie’s dad.
- Steve Franken (The Time Travelers) … Steve Torres. Bo’s training partner at the post office.
- Buddy Lester (The Ladies Man) … Claude Reed
- Leonard Stone (Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory) … Ted Mitchell
- Jerry Lester … Slats
- Billy Barty (Willow, UHF) … Sammy
- Alex Henteloff (Star Trek V) … J. Ralling. Interviewer at the Post Office.
Trivia for Hardly working
- Jerry Lewis’s first theatrical film in nearly a decade. Hardly Working has been described as being Lewis’ “comeback” movie. Lewis performed a number of roles on this film, he was a co-writer, lead actor and director, the penultimate cinema film he directed. Lewis was aged around 55 years and was going through a divorce from his then wife Patti Lewis when this movie was made and released.
- Final film of Bob May, famous for playing the robot from the TV series Lost in Space. Also the final film of: Harold J. Stone, Susan Oliver, Roger C. Carmel.
- The clown make-up that Jerry Lewis wears in this movie is the same design that he wore for 3 Ring Circus and The Family Jewels.
- Jerry Lewis appears in drag in this movie. He plays the ‘Little Ol’ Lady’, billed in the credits as Joseph Levitch. Jerry Lewis’ birth name.