pointyfilippa The movie runs out of plot and jokes well before the end of a two-hour running time, long for a light comedy.

Chantel Contreras It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

Brenda The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Wyatt There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Applause Meter Martin & Lewis were everywhere in the 1950s. Movies. TV. I remember the duo very well and watching them as a child, I thought Jerry Lewis was hilarious. I haven't seen them together since those days. When I saw "The Stooge" recently on TCM, my memories took a big jolt. This is a really is an unpleasant, uncomfortable movie. Lewis plays a pathetic nitwit who should be kept on a leash for his own good; instead he is exploited by show biz types. Dean is Dean, a competent crooner with a pleasant, easy going manner. Dean Martin never reached his stride until he cut the umbilical cord from Jerry and took up with the Sinatra Rat Pack. There's nothing funny about "The Stooge." The movie is a curio, an example of what the public applauded as comedic entertainment 60 years ago: the eccentric combo of Martin & Lewis.

MartynGryphon The Stooge was Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis's 7th Movie together (8th if you include the blink and you'll miss it cameo in Hope/Crosby's Road to Bali), and it's one of their best.Dean plays Bill Miller a Broadway star and part of a successful musical comedy double act, who decides that he could be just a big a star doing a single act. despite all around him advising him that he couldn't.As predicted, his solo act goes down like a lead balloon and he lays egg after egg in all the houses he plays, thanks to his poor and well travelled jokes. His agent Leo Lyman, (Eddie Mayehoff), convinces him to get a 'Stooge' to sit in the audience and heckle him as he performs in the hopes of adding life to his stagnant act.Enter ex stock room boy Ted Rogers,(Jerry), as the klutzy kid hired for the role. The new and revived act brings the house down with audience convulsed with laughter at the way they played off each other.Bill & Ted tour the country to rave reviews but Bill has delusions of grandeur by thinking he's still a single act. Even though most of newspapers are praising Ted, he receives no formal billing, a fact that either doesn't bother Ted, or he's content to see his friend happy by not mentioning it. In Bill's defence, there is no conscious malice towards Ted as he does genuinely care for Ted as a person, but sees him as nothing more than an essential prop in HIS act.Ted is naive in every single way and will not have a bad word said about his 'partner', especially when his girlfriend, Genevieve 'Frecklehead' Tait, (Marion Marshall), Leo, and even Bill's wife Mary, (Polly Bergen), try to stick up for him by telling him that he's being made out a stooge in more ways than one. Bill's failure to realise that he is actually part of a mega successful double act finally threatens to alienate everyone close to him and even end his marriage.The Stooge is in many ways a mirror of Dean & Jerry's own rise to fame and also a precursor of the demise of their partnership in 1956. When they were both booked to play the 500 club as single acts in 1946 both acts were not very successful until Jerry started heckling Dean during his act smashing plates and causing mayhem. The act quickly took off until by the end of their first week it was standing room only. When they split up 10 years to the day later, critics were convinced that Dean Martin would disappear from the scene and wouldn't be able to make it without Jerry who would no doubt become the clown prince of Hollywood. Thus the entire film is an undisputed case of life imitating art.The support cast is brilliant, the songs superb and you can never EVER get sick and tired of listening to Dino sing. Jerry has couple of great scenes. One see's him singing a song in his own squeaky voice but turns into Maurice Chevalier whenever he puts on a hat, the other is in his very first scene in the diner where he shares the laughs with that brilliant character actor Donald MacBride.Drama, Comedy, and Dino singing, this movie's got the lot.Enjoy!!!!

Spikeopath Some good comments here on this site already, so I really don't want to go over old ground, it is a portent of sorts, and there is no getting away from the fact that its central themes of narcissism and selfishness are striking a chord with the duo as the film draws to it's marvellous finale.The film was held back for release for two years and it's not hard to see why in the light of the other Martin & Lewis out and out comedy offerings prior to this one. You see this offering is a drama with a comedy heart. Of course it's full of the maniacal moments one has come to expect from this pair, but we are never in any doubt that the core of the film is serious stuff. We are set up a treat by the makers because we are heartily involved with the mirthful nature for the first three parts of the film, and it's this that is the films chief triumph because when the shift in tone occurs: it hits you like a sledgehammer.Maximum impact is gained by a cunning slant masquerading as comedy, and this makes the film, in my opinion, the duo's most poignant and accomplished piece of work, it's certainly not close to being the funniest one has to say, but it's an essential and great piece of entertainment from two very special entertainers. 8/10

santsa70 I haven't seen this movie in years, but a flick like this one just cannot be forgotten! I am in my early twenties and for more than half my life, I have been a film buff of movies old and new. Martin and Lewis are one of my all time favorite comedy duos, and at one time, I was renting movies here and there so that I could see all of the films they made together, and ones the lively, virtuous humanitarian Lewis did during his solo career. When I saw this movie, it just blew me away. This film is the most dramatic film those boys ever made--and if you're thinking that that can't possibly be saying much since most of their movies were screwball comedies, I'm here to tell you you're mistaken. This movie is funny, but it's also very impassioned and heart-rendering, so you might do yourself a favor by keeping a box of tissues near you when viewing it.Both Martin and Lewis are great in these dramatic and comedic roles as a comedy team that splits up because Lewis' character is under-appreciated and emotional mistreated by Martin's character. In a oddly coincidental way, this movie seemed to foreshadow the boys' split up in '56, but of course, in the movie, there is a happy ending. And while everyone knows that both Dean and Jerry went on to have successful solo careers and reunited as friends years later, I think that it would have been great to have seen them do a couple more films together that were as unforgettable as this one.