Sailor Beware

Rabid animal lovers will immensely enjoy watching Jerry Lewis in his and Dean Martin's latest film, Sailor Beware. He bounces like a kangaroo, twitches like a horse, warbles like a rooster and talks like a nanny goat. Non-zoophiles, however, will find Lewis' prancing decreasingly funny as the picture goes on.

Sailor Beware suffers from a gross misjudgement on the part of producer Hal Wallis. In an effort to make the picture funny, he has sacrificed all pretense of plot to allow the rubber-faced Mr. Lewis every possible situation for the display of his various energetic talents. At different points Lewis plays a Hawaiian ethnic dancer, a professional prize fighter, a lover, a sailor and others too numerous to mention.

Sandwiched between this phrenetic activity are some interesting shots of naval boot training, of a submarine crossing the Pacific and of Corinne Calvert. These may be a relief after concentrated doses of Lewis' nasal voice, but they kill off whatever slight continuity there might have been otherwise.

The film also contains much stock Abbott and Costello type humor. At one point, Lewis, in attempting to escape a naval blood test wanders into a blood bank, where he is interviewed by a beautiful nurse.

Beautiful Nurse: What type are you?

Lewis: The quiet type.

Beautiful Nurse: No, I mean what kind of blood.

Lewis: Red.

This is all very well and good for a half hour, but an hour and three quarters of it is too much to take. Had Mr. Wallis followed the formula of the last Martin Lewis film, That's My Boy, by providing a little continuity and plot, Sailor Beware would have been a much more successful offering.