The “dismal, wretched, awful” comedy Roger Ebert called “one of the worst movies ever”
Comedy might just be the toughest nut to crack in cinema, because something that splits one person at the sides can leave another unable to raise as much as a light smirk. Like all art, it’s entirely subjective, but one movie designed to tickle the funny bone left Roger Ebert so affronted that he called it one of the worst films to ever see the inside of a cinema.
Think about that for a second. Think about how many features play on the big screen on an annual basis. At the very least, it’s in the high hundreds, and then when you multiply that by how many years have passed since the Lumière brothers screened a selection of shorts in Paris in the late 19th century, it gives an inkling of just how much Ebert despised the picture.
There’s an air of hyperbole, but when he personally estimated that he’d seen at least 10,000 movies in the cinema with his own two eyes, it also illustrates just how far towards the bottom of the barrel it really was. To make matters worse, it was co-written, produced, and starred an actor and icon he’d known since childhood, which added an extra layer of venom to his appraisal of Jerry Lewis’ 1980 effort.
“Hardly Working is one of the great non-experiences of my moviegoing life,” he wrote in a zero-star review. “I was absolutely stunned by the vast stupidity of this film. It was a test of patience and tolerance that a saint might not have passed, but I didn’t walk out. I remained for every single last dismal, wretched, awful moment. I was keeping a pledge to myself.”
The entire 91-minute feature revolves around a solitary gag; Lewis’ Bo Hooper is a literal clown who finds himself in dire need of employment when his circus unexpectedly closes down. He tries to find work in a series of menial jobs, but his habit of knocking things over and causing inadvertent chaos quickly show that he isn’t cut out for a nine-to-five gig.
Ebert had heard through the grapevine that critics were banned from attending the premiere because “Jerry Lewis makes films for the masses and critics are unequipped to understand his appeal.” The same can, and has, been said about other big-screen comedians, including Jim Carrey, Eddie Murphy, and Adam Sandler, but what did he make of the party line? “Horse manure.”
“Hardly Working is one of the worst movies ever to achieve commercial release in this country,” he boldly proclaimed. “And it is no wonder it was on the shelf for two years before it saw the light of day. It is not just a bad film; it is incompetent filmmaking.” Ironically, both things can be true, since the movie made almost $50 million at the box office to underline Lewis’ appeal, although Ebert was hardly the only critic to dish out a savage review.
“Once, a very long time ago, Jerry Lewis made me laugh,” he lamented, ending his withering evaluation with a nostalgic bent. “I was seven at the time. He still seems to be making movies for the same audience.” For context, Ebert was almost 40 when it was released.
