Geisha Boy

"The Geisha Boy" is a funny movie with some classic scenes such as when the rabbit gets loose on the plane and when Jerry Lewis's sandwiches keep mysteriously disappearing. If you like good old comedy movies, you should like this one.


Lewis at his entertaining best   January 29, 2000
 5 out of 7 found this review helpful

Geisha Boy is a complex film. Jerry Lewis plays an inept magician who is so bad that his agent can only book him for a USO show to the combat zone of Korea. We see this ineptness in his act and interactions with other perfomers in the USO show, along with the LA Dodgers and a Japanese baseball hero. Yet we also see a much deeper aspect of Lewis as he becomes the friend of a Japanese boy who laughed after seeing Lewis' dramatic entry into Tokyo where he knocked the leading lady of the show down the boarding ladder. The boy's aunt seeks out Jerry to thank him and introduce him to her nephew and explain that he had never laughed since his parents were killed several years before. We generally see Lewis playing the clown in his movies but in Geisha Boy, we see the man behind the clown as he clearly becomes attached to the boy and his aunt. Sessue Hiakawa is quite entertaining as he is mistaken by Lewis for that movie fellow after Lewis vizualizes the Bridge on the River Kwai as he arrives at the home of the little boy. Finally Lewis hs to leave Japan and return to the states. At the airport he discovers that the little boy wants to go with him to the US. After trying to explain that he can't take him with him, realizing that he is speaking english to a boy who doesn't understand it, Lewis resorts to emotions, anger to convey to the boy that he doesn't want him to go with him, that he doesn't love him. The boy runs away and we can see what it has cost Lewis. But the boy is resiliant and stows away on the airplane, creating a huge flap when the plane lands. The boy is repatriated to Japan and this time Lewis stows away to go home with him. This is a fine film with excellent performances by Lewis and the entire cast, from the cabdriver at the start of the film to Harry the Rabbitt at the end. It will entertain kids of all ages.


FUN FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY !!   June 27, 1999
 4 out of 4 found this review helpful

My kids (6 & 9 yrs) loved it (especially the rabbit & the little boy). Airplane scene is a classic--only today's Jim Carrey might have done it as funny. Classic Lewis.