Cinema: Psycho-ceramic?

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The Patsy. When he gets a shoeshine, the bootblack lays on a nice thick coat of mushy black polish before happening to notice that the customer is barefoot. When he wants to look well dressed, he pulls his socks down over his sneakers. When somebody shouts in his face, his eyebrows grow six inches in six seconds. When somebody calls him a psycho-ceramic, he figures they mean a crackpot.

Crackpot is hardly the word for Jerry Lewis, a shrewd showbusinessman who would do almost anything to make a dollar. Ever since he went Hollywood he has systematically loused up a considerable comic talent, and in the process his pictures have made millions. Patsy will make several more, no doubt about that. It's essentially a re-run of the same movie Jerry has been making over and over for the past eight years: the story of a poor twerp who becomes a rich twerp. This time he has added the insurance of a strong supporting cast of senior comics: Keenan Wynn, Ed Wynn, Phil Harris, Everett Sloane and the late Peter Lorre. They manage now and then to do something funny, but the rest of the time they look like men struggling in an avalanche of pablum.