Review of The Errand Boy

Jerry Lewis stars in, co-wrote, and directed this comedy about a bumbler (guess who?) who works at a movie studio, Paramutual Pictures. This type of child-in-a-man's-body slapstick is a movie epidemic that some audiences still embrace, yet "The Errand Boy" is no more a series of sketches, most of them dim and juvenile. There's a funny bit in a crowded elevator, and the Cartwrights from "Bonanza" have a great cameo, but Lewis has no designs to deliver an effervescent romp about the underdog who makes good. He's not interested in comedy with subtext or believability--it's just Jerry Lewis matinée-nonsense, with mugging and frothing at the mouth. *1/2 from ****