Grade: B+
Synopsis: A semi-fictionalized story of singer turned comedian Joe E. Lewis (Frank Sinatra).
The Joker Is Wild is a near great bio-pic featuring one of the best performances of Frank Sinatra’s career.
The cast is terrific. Sinatra doesn’t have to stretch to fill the title role, yet he doesn’t over do it either. His scene as a drunken Lewis, slurring his way through his act is spot-on, poignant and captivating. Watching scenes like this, you can’t help but wonder how much Sinatra related to the character, given the entertainer’s own legendary, and sometimes turbulent, lifestyle.
Supporting Sinatra, both Jeanne Crain and Mitzi Gaynor work well as his love interests, although Gaynor goes a bit overboard in her drunken monologue. Eddie Albert is also solid as Lewis’ longtime friend and accompanist.
It’s an engrossing story that moves along well, holding your interest while building an emotional investment. Up to the halfway point, it’s damn near perfect. Then, unfortunately, it makes its first misstep when it tries to interject some comedy regarding the censorship of Albert’s character’s letter back home from a USO tour. It’s an awkward bit that doesn’t work and spoils the pacing. Sure, it’s in keeping with Lewis’ humor, but the film’s strength up to this point was that we were seeing his act from the inside, looking through Lewis’ eyes on stage, as opposed to sitting in the audience. This poor bit puts us back in the audience.
The second misstep comes from the ending. Sinatra’s mirror monologue is too heavy handed and unnecessary, tacking a faux happy ending onto a story that doesn’t have one. In fact, The Joker Is Wild doesn’t really have an ending at all, and that’s perhaps its biggest problem. Joe E. Lewis was still alive in 1957 (and would be for another 14 years), and watching the film, you get the feeling that you’ve just seen the first two acts of a three act story, one that probably doesn’t end as well as the film would lead you to believe.
Still, though these faults do keep a good film from being great, they shouldn’t overshadow the fact that The Joker Is Wild is a very good movie and easily a must-see for Sinatra fans.
