"Who's Minding the Store?" is a movie that is so stupid its funny. This film contains scenes that are incredibly dim-witted. Other scenes are dumber than dumb. But I found myself laughing at what was going on. I haven't seen alot of Jerry Lewis movies with the exception of a few including this one. "Who's Minding the Store?" stars Lewis as Norman Pfeiffer, a hapless young man who works as a poodle dog walker and animal sitter. He is engaged to be married to a lovely young woman named Barbara played by Jill St. John (before she became a Bond woman in "Diamonds Are Forever"). Barbara works at a department store as an elevator operator. One day she goes to visit Norman while dog-sitting, and she breaks the news to him that her bosses want Norman to come work at the store. Norman is thrilled to get the chance to work close to his girl, and (foolishly) accepts the job. However, what Barbara doesn't know is that this is a scheme by her mother Phoebe Tuttle (played by "Bewitched" star Agnes Moorehead), who just happens to be the store owner. Phoebe is not happy one bit that her daughter is engaged to this imbecile. So she orders the store manager Mr. Quimby (Ray Walston) to give Norman the hardest, most impossible jobs to do so that he'll quit his new job and hopefully end up breaking off his engagement to Barbara. The jobs that Norman does in this film are unbelievable, and in the process ends up turning the store upside down into a disaster area. I laughed, and laughed, and laughed, at the stupidity of what went on and I couldn't help it. This movie cracks me up (interesting, because 20 years after Lewis made this he made a movie titled oddly enough "Cracking Up"). I feel kind of guilty admitting that I like this film, but I did.
*** (out of four)
*** (out of four)