Pardners (1956)

A rich momma's boy returns west with the son of his murdered father's partner to foil a gang trying to gain control of his family ranch.

Director:

Norman Taurog

Writers:

Sidney Sheldon (screenplay), Jerry Davis (screen story)

Stars:

Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Lori Nelson

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Dean Martin	...	Slim Moseley Jr. / Slim Moseley Sr.
Jerry Lewis	...	Wade Kingsley Jr. / Wade Kingsley Sr.
Lori Nelson	...	Carol Kingsley
Jeff Morrow	...	Pete Rio
Jackie Loughery	...	Dolly Riley
John Baragrey	...	Dan Hollis / Sam Hollis
Agnes Moorehead	...	Mrs. Matilda Kingsley
Lon Chaney Jr.	...	Whitey (as Lon Chaney)
Milton Frome	...	Hawkins, the Butler
Richard Aherne	...	Chauffeur
Lee Van Cleef	...	Gus
Stuart Randall	...	Carol's Cowhand
Scott Douglas	...	Salvin
Jack Elam	...	Pete
Bob Steele	...	Shorty

Storyline

Martin and Lewis are sons of former ranch partners. Lewis, raised by his millionaire mother, follows visiting Martin back to the old West to learn how to be a cowboy. The ranch where Martin is foreman is in financial trouble, and with Lewis's unorthodox help, the good guys win out.

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Plot Keywords:

singing | 1910s | slapstick comedy | cattle ranch | remake | 

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Taglines:

DEAN MARTIN AND JERRY LEWIS SHOOT THE WORKS with LAUGHTER...and bullets, ballads and beauties!

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Genres:

Action | Comedy | Music | Romance | Western

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Certificate:

Passed

Did You Know?

Trivia

First Dean Martín western.

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Goofs

As Dean rescues Jerry in the doorway of the train after it leaves New York, cars from the 1950s, not 1910, are visible in the rail yard in the stock footage background.

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Quotes

Slim Mosely Jr.: [waiting with Carol to meet Mrs. Kingsley] Oh, don't worry - I'll make a good impression.
Slim Mosely Jr.: [he sits on an old chair and in collapses just as Matilda comes into the room screaming in horror] My antique chair!
Slim Mosely Jr.: [relieved] Well, I'm glad it was only an old one.

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Connections

Referenced in Martin and Lewis (2002)

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Soundtracks

Pardners
Music by Jimmy Van Heusen (as James Van Heusen)
Lyrics by Sammy Cahn
Sung by Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis

User Reviews

A pretty disappointing film all things considered

I'd heard a lot of great things about the comedy pairing of Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin. I'd seen Jerry Lewis in some other films before this (such as "The Nutty Professor" and "Rock-A-Bye-Baby") where he didn't really stand out as being a comedy legend, if anything he just seemed really annoying at points.

However I wasn't going to let that get in the way of enjoying what I had heard was a great double act.

But... this movie kind of sucked.

The most important thing that a comedy needs is to be funny, and unfortunately this doesn't quite hit the right mark. Jerry Lewis screaming and whining in that voice of his gets irritating after a while, and pairing him with the rather subdued and (in my opinion anyway) boring Dean Martin doesn't help as there's no one around to rein him in.

The story of this film feels like it was thought up five minuted before shooting began. It's the standard "there's a new sheriff in town and some criminals are trying to get rid of him" state of affairs that we've all seen about one hundred times before. However I will give the writers some credit as they did try to add a little twist to it, but ultimately it doesn't work because you don't really care about what's happening.

There's also this weird thing about an inter-generational family war which means that Dean Martin's character (a cowboy) and Jerry Lewis' character (a spoiled socialite who has always dreamed of being a cowboy) have to team up to stop the bad guys who are... doing something bad.

However this just means that it takes about 40 minutes for the two main characters to team up which means the rest of the movie feels incredibly rushed, so I wish they'd structured the movie better in that regard.

Oh yeah, also it's a musical? That was something I only figured out about 30 minutes in, which is when the first musical number appears. I can't actually remember any other songs after that though, so maybe there was only one? Either way, it was unnecessary and pointless and only served to waste time.

Overall, this movie was a pretty big disappointment, but it wasn't completely awful. Hopefully my future attempts to watch some Lewis and Martin will yield greater results.

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

1 August 1956 (USA)

Also Known As:

Where Men Are Men?

Filming Locations:

Old Tucson, Arizona, USA

Box Office

Gross USA:

$7,920,000

Company Credits

Production Co:

York Pictures Corporation

Technical Specs

Runtime:

90 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Perspecta Sound encoding) (Western Electric Recording)

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1